From: lfsheldon@gmail.com   
      
   On 7/22/2014 9:39 AM, Robert Heller wrote:   
   > At Tue, 22 Jul 2014 07:01:45 -0700 (PDT) hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:   
   >   
   >>   
   >> On Monday, July 21, 2014 10:34:36 PM UTC-4, Glen Labah wrote:   
   >>   
   >>> If you can find some other reason why the Koch Brothers behave as they=20   
   >>> do, I would love to hear it.   
   >>   
   >> Generally speaking, folks who oppose Amtrak and transit do so for ideology,=   
   >>   greed, and power.  Not logic nor facts.   
   >>   
   >> These folks have got the notion locked in their heads that rail public tran=   
   >> sit--local and Amtrak--is somehow evil and must be eliminated.  They believ=   
   >> e it represents an enormous drain on the Federal deficit (people used to co=   
   >> me to this newsgroup and say so).  Ironically, they have no problem with th=   
   >> e evil guvmint operating highways, toll facilities, or airports--no call to=   
   >>   sell off and privatize any of those operations.   
   >>   
   >> As another example, in Pennsylvania, liquor/wine stores are run by the stat=   
   >> e, a legacy of the depression.  The state makes a profit off of their sales=   
   >>   which goes into the state treasury.  The anti-government crowd   
   desperately=   
   >>   wants to sell off the stores, and make all sorts of FALSE claims about   
   the=   
   >>   situation.  The actual bottom line is that the state would end up losing   
   m=   
   >> oney--after all, store profits now kept by the state would then be kept by =   
   >> private businesses.   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> Another aspect is greed and power.  You would think if someone builds up a =   
   >> $1 million fortune they'd be happy.  But no, they then want $10 million, th=   
   >> en $100 million.  They begin to see their wealth as an _entitlement_ that t=   
   >> hey deserve, and they vehemently object to anything that gets in their way,=   
   >>   or that they disagree with.   
   >>   
   >> It's scary--these folks want to turn the clock back to the robber barron er=   
   >> a 100 years ago, which they think was good for the country.   
   >   
   > Right, the robber barron era ultimately resulted in the 1929 stock market   
   > crash, followed by the Great Depression. Which in turn was 'fixed' with the1   
   > New Deal: a progressive Income Tax, Social Security, etc. And *that* led to a   
   > great prosperity, which pretty much ended with Regan & the neo-cons who cut   
   > various taxes and undid various banking regulations put in place to prevent   
   > another 1929-style stock market crash.   
   >   
   > The only reason we didn't have *another* 1929-style stock market crash +   
   > *second* Great Depression, was because some of the New Deal reforms are still   
   > in effect (including Social Security). But otherwise, the economy is is in a   
   > bad way, and will *continue* to be in a bad way, probably until there is   
   > another "New Deal" OR there is a second American Revolution or Civil War. The   
   > Koch Brothers and their ilk are not making things better, they are making   
   > things worse.   
      
      
   I need some history help here--of the men to which the tag "robber   
   baron" was originally attached, which had nothing whatever to do wit   
   railroads?   
      
   Here is the list from Wikipedia--hard to imagine "oil" without   
   "railroads", "steel" without "railroads", "retail" without "railroads",   
   and so on.   
      
   List of businessmen who were labeled as robber barons:   
      
   > The people here are listed in Josephson, Robber Barons or in the cited   
   source,   
   >   
   >     John Jacob Astor (real estate, fur) – New York   
   >     Andrew Carnegie (steel) – Pittsburgh and New York   
   >     William A. Clark (copper) – Butte, Montana[10]   
   >     Jay Cooke (finance) – Philadelphia   
   >     Charles Crocker (railroads) – California   
   >     Daniel Drew (finance) – New York   
   >     James Buchanan Duke (tobacco) – Durham, North Carolina   
   >     Marshall Field (retail) – Chicago[11]   
   >     James Fisk (finance) – New York   
   >     Henry Morrison Flagler (railroads, oil) – New York and Florida[12]   
   >     Henry Clay Frick (steel) – Pittsburgh and New York   
   >     William Henry Gates (Technology) – Seattle[13]   
   >     John Warne Gates (barbed wire, oil) – Texas[14]   
   >     Jay Gould (railroads) – New York[15]   
   >     Edward Henry Harriman (railroads) – New York[16]   
   >     Charles T. Hinde (railroads, water transport, shipping, hotels) -   
   Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, California   
   >     Mark Hopkins (railroads) – California   
   >     Collis Potter Huntington (railroads) - California   
   >     Koch Family (Oil and Industrials) - Kansas and New York[17]   
   >     Andrew W. Mellon (finance, oil) - Pittsburgh   
   >     J. P. Morgan (finance, industrial consolidation) – New York   
   >     John Cleveland Osgood (coal mining, iron) - Colorado[18]   
   >     Henry B. Plant (railroads) – Florida[19]   
   >     John D. Rockefeller (oil) – Cleveland, New York   
   >     Charles M. Schwab (steel) – Pittsburgh and New York   
   >     Joseph Seligman (banking) – New York   
   >     John D. Spreckels (water transport, railroads, sugar) – California   
   >     Leland Stanford (railroads) - California   
   >     Cornelius Vanderbilt (water transport, railroads) – New York[20]   
   >     Charles Tyson Yerkes (street railroads) – Chicago[21]   
      
      
      
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)   
   --   
   Idioten aangeboden. Gratis af te halen.   
   h/t Dagelijkse Standaard   
      
   --- SoupGate/W32 v1.03   
    * Origin: LiveWire BBS -=*=- UseNet FTN Gateway (1:2320/1)