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Old 02-02-2009, 01:20 PM   #5
Crafty Angler
Geezer Gone Wild
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Krinkle View Post
If you look at the wealth today I think it is reasonable to say that we are in a second guilded age.
Exactly -

That's my point about knowing US history - I told my wife some time ago - before the scheisser really hit the fan - that the current situation we are in now is right out of the same playbook. The parallels are phenomenal and in many cases the prime movers are direct decendents of those very same men - old habits die hard, I guess.

It's been said that every fortune begins with a great crime - while that isn't true in every case, I'm afraid it occurs more often than not. However, there were some who went on - like Carnegie - to do good works with their accumulated wealth.

What we are seeing now - or what is coming to light - is just a latter day version of that sort of ruthless greed and arrogance at it's very worst.

If you're interested, pick up Joseph Matthewson's The Robber Barons from the library for a complete well-writen history or his later book The Money Lords.

It was written during the Depression in 1934 and now, oddly enough, there have been several revisionist books published in an undoubtedly conservative effort to discredit Matthewson -

All written during the Bush years, by the way...

Last edited by Crafty Angler; 02-02-2009 at 01:38 PM..

"There is no royal road to this heavy surf-fishing. With all the appliances for comfort experience can suggest, there is a certain amount of hard work to be done and exposure to be bourne as a part of the price of success." From "Striped Bass," Scribner's Magazine, 1881.
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