New 4 Part Show On History Tonite....

Have to laugh when they talk about the fat cats of yesteryear as "the builders of America". Yes, they helped but a lot of America was built by hard-working Americans who were not well educated or rich but sure knew how to swing an ax, shovel, or pick.

Yes Ed and Baseball your both right, as America was built by the common man. But like Baseball said, minus the right leader in the right place at the right time in charge of it all, nothing ever gets organized on a big enough scale to make a serious difference, via a vision most common people like myself never have....

Attila united the Huns, after his death the tribes fell back into senseless civil war etc....

A lesser known leader from Germany, Armidius the hammer after being taken in by the Roman army as they often did, lead 3 Roman legions into a death trap along a mountain trail in the woods deep in the Teutoberg forest in now modern day Germany, where his men ambushed the 3 legions, and not one man, woman, or child was said to survive....

Augustus was said to roam the halls of his palace yelling" Varus what have you done with my legions?" via the commander Armidius lead into the trap....

He regained Germany's freedom from Rome for a short time, again until one of his brothers killed him in 21 A.D. in a scuffle. And again Germany fell back into their dark ages for several hundred years once that leadership had faded away....

I was gonna say with that stack youve built your not exactly the railroad builder yourself

Rockefeller certainly isn't coming off in a good light so far. The only thing I would say is fair is kind of relative to the time. Whatever are the stardards of that day are the standards to judge by. I'm sure people a 100 years or so will look back to now and say I cant believe they allowed that. That said Rockefeller certainly looks like a jerk since I cant type the other word on here

I think they will eventually get Rockefeller's mid life change and illness....

At perhaps the age of 52 pronounced terminal by many doctors, could not eat but crackers and water, hair fell out....

STAY with me here, copy and paste from Wiki on JDR....

"influence of Swami Vivekananda

During Swami Vivekananda's visit to Chicago, he was staying at the house of a partner or an associate in some business with John D. Rockefeller. Many times Rockefeller heard his friends talking about this extraordinary and wonderful Hindu monk who was staying with them, and many times he had been invited to meet Swamiji but, for one reason or another, always refused. At that time Rockefeller was not yet at the peak of his fortune, but was already powerful and strong-willed, very difficult to handle and a hard man to advise.But one day, although he did not want to meet Swamiji, he was pushed to it by an impulse and went directly to the house of his friends, brushing aside the butler who opened the door and saying that he wanted to see the Hindu monk. The butler ushered him into the living room, and, not waiting to be announced,Rockefeller entered into Swamiji's adjoining study and was much surprised, I presume, to see Swamiji behind his writing table not even lifting his eyes to see who had entered. After a while, as with Calvé, Swamiji told Rockefeller much of his past that was not known to any but himself, and made him understand that the money he had already accumulated was not his, that he was only a channel and that his duty was to do good to the world �" that God had given him all his wealth in order that he might have an opportunity to help and do good to people. Rockefeller was annoyed that anyone dared to talk to him that way and tell him what to do. He left the room in irritation, not even saying goodbye. But about a week after, again without being announced, he entered Swamiji's study and, finding him the same as before, threw on his desk a paper which told of his plans to donate an enormous sum of money toward the financing of a public institution. "Well, there you are", he said. "You must be satisfied now, and you can thank me for it." Swamiji didn't even lift his eyes, did not move. Then taking the paper, he quietly read it, saying: "It is for you to thank me". That was all. This was Rockefeller's first large donation to the public welfare."

I also heard he told him something from his childhood no one else could have knew....

O.K, he changed his ways and began to good for others. He had many children, got better after living for God, and lived to be almost 98 dying two months shy of 98th birthday. FACT not fiction, jut is what it is, call it karma, intelligent design, whatever....

Ever heard of the Tuskegee airmen, red tails, first all black fighter regiment from World war II, never lost a bomber. Who gave that school (Tuskegee college) the funds to get started, Rockefeller....

And I am pretty sure he had his hands involved in funding the research facilities that created the polio vaccine and perhaps even small pox, AND guess what else, penicillin. Try and find a larger contribution to mankind then just penicillin, lol....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller

Very interesting to note how the BIG players manipulated things to their best interest to follow up on thought from another post in another thread....

So it started with Vanderbilt and his shipping control then railroads....

Then John D with the oil and kerosene....

Then Carnegie with steel and union wars....

Morgan needs his mark and sees it perhaps in Edison's light-bulb. Dad thinks he is foolish following a pipe dream and he didn't exactly come from poor backgrounds like the others....

Edison invents the light bulb, Tesla takes it a step further with BETTER AC current verses DC....

Funny on side note the inventors are the used by the government and big players like true PAWNS on a chess board and usually turn up dead or broke and busted....

The thing that made the early entrepreneurs great, they played to their own personal STRENGTHS but when they were weak in one area, they hired someone who was good at what they were not or an expert even at what they were not....

So Morgan gets the last laugh by forcing Westinghouse and Tesla to sell him pattens to AC current as they could not compete with Morgans wallet in court, even after winning the Worlds fair contract in 1893 and the Niagara power plant project....

Then he corners the entire market and starts some little company called general electric...

Next comes Ford and the assembly line, looks like the others take a back seat like JD Rockefeller after the kerosine lamp was replaced with electric light....

In the end what did they all have in common, INNOVATION, the ability to see a product that could change the world like a light-bulb, and implement it in a way every American had practical access to it....

Too bad we don't have as many visionaries in place today or so it appears, which were part of getting this country started to begin with as an economical powerhouse....

"Its also interesting that they bring up the fact in next week that these giants would loan the government money to save it from financial collapse showing again that today's problems are not something new or unique to our current government."

I also found that to be very interesting backing up the point we were both making last week Baseball. Via if push comes to shove they would indeed get together, pull their money together, wipe the books clean, whatever and start fresh again...

Like you said not a new problem and one that will continue to show up from time to time in the future....