Let's talk about another so-called "robber-barron" and his "evil" accomplishments, John D. Rockefeller. Rockefeller, due to his superb efficiency as a businessman and oil producer and refiner, managed to reduce the price of kerosene (used to light lamps at night before we had electric lights),www.monstercheaperbeats.net
from about $1. 50 a gallon to less than 30 cents a gallon by the 1920's. What Rockefeller accomplished was to give Americans the night back. The vast majority of Americans were now able to afford cheap kerosene to light their lamps at night, so they didn't have to go to bed in the dark after the sun went down, or depend on candles, or (horror of horrors) whale oil, almost making whales an endangered species. Gee, it seems that besides Rockefeller giving most Americans the ability to read books at night, work at night indoors, and stay up at night with cheap kerosene fuel, he also saved the whales (eco-freaks rejoice! )#). That's really evil. That's besides literally creating the oil and refining industry that we have today that employs millions of Americans, lights their houses at night, drives their cars, refrigerators, and iPods. Yes, what an evil "robber-barron" he was. A more modern classic example of a true government-created "robber-barron" was the stranglehold monopoly on long-distance telephone service held by AT&T for over 20 years. WHY did AT&T have a monopoly where they could charge customers $1. 50 a minute for long-distance calls, where now, after the AT&T monopoly was broken up, fierce competition has driven down the price of long-distance calls to less than 10 cents a minute? It was because Federal government regulators GAVE them that monopoly by legally forbidding other competitors.