Re: The joy of actual numbers, was Democracy

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:

The link I posted about the California High Speed Rail project bears that
put. Even in the 19th century when most of the US rail infrastructure was
built corruption was the catch of the day.
>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9dit_Mobilier_scandal
>
If you like dramas:
>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_on_Wheels_(TV_series)

past "Railroaded" aritcle/book
http://phys.org/news/2012-01-railroad-hyperbole-echoes-dot-com-frenzy.html
and
https://www.amazon.com/Railroaded-Transcontinentals-Making-America-ebook/dp/B0051GST1U
pg77/pg1984-86: By the end of the summer of 1873 the western railroads
had, within the span of two years, ended the Indian treaty system in the
United States, brought down a Canadian government, and nearly paralyzed
the U.S. Congress. The greatest blow remained to be delivered. The
railroads were about to bring down the North American economy.

pg510/loc10030-33: The result was not only unneeded railroads whose
effects were as often bad as beneficial but also corruption of the
markets and the government. The men who directed this capital were
frequently not themselves capitalists. They were entrepreneurs who
borrowed money or collected subsidies. These entrepreneurs did not
invent the railroad, but they were inventing corporations, railroad
systems, and new forms of competition. Those things yielded both
personal wealth and social disasters

pg515/loc10118-22: The need to invest capital and labor in large amounts
to maintain and upgrade what had already been built was one debt owed to
the past, but the second one was what Charles Francis Adams in his days
as a reformer referred to as a tax on trade. All of the watered stock,
money siphoned off into private pockets, waste, and fraud that
characterized the building of the railroads created a corporate debt
that had to be paid through higher rates and scrimping on service. A
shipper in 1885 was still paying for the frauds of the 1860s.


... and railroads scamming the supreme court
https://www.amazon.com/We-Corporations-American-Businesses-Rights-ebook/dp/B01M64LRDJ/
pgxiii/loc45-50: IN DECEMBER 1882, ROSCOE CONKLING, A FORMER SENATOR and
close confidant of President Chester Arthur, appeared before the
justices of the Supreme Court of the United States to argue that
corporations like his client, the Southern Pacific Railroad Company,
were entitled to equal rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Although
that provision of the Constitution said that no state shall "deprive any
person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" or
"deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws," Conkling insisted the amendment's drafters intended to cover
business corporations too.

pg36/loc726-28: On this issue, Hamiltonians were
corporationalists--proponents of corporate enterprise who advocated for
expansive constitutional rights for business. Jeffersonians, meanwhile,
were populists--opponents of corporate power who sought to limit
corporate rights in the name of the people.

pg229/loc3667-68: IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, CORPORATIONS WON LIBERTY
RIGHTS, SUCH AS FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND RELIGION, WITH THE HELP OF
ORGANIZATIONS LIKE THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.


False Profits: Reviving the Corporation's Public Purpose
https://www.uclalawreview.org/false-profits-reviving-the-corporations-public-purpose/

I Origins of the Corporation. Although the corporate structure dates
back as far as the Greek and Roman Empires, characteristics of the
modern corporation began to appear in England in the mid-thirteenth
century.[4] "Merchant guilds" were loose organizations of merchants
"governed through a council somewhat akin to a board of directors," and
organized to "achieve a common purpose"[5] that was public in
nature. Indeed, merchant guilds registered with the state and were
approved only if they were "serving national purposes."[6]

... however there has been significant pressure to give corporate
charters to entities operating in self-interest ... followed by
extending constitutional "people" rights to corporations. The supreme
court was scammed into extending 14th amendment rights to corporations
(with faux claims that was what the original authors had intended).
https://www.amazon.com/We-Corporations-American-Businesses-Rights-ebook/dp/B01M64LRDJ/
pgxiv/loc74-78: Between 1868, when the amendment was ratified, and 1912,
when a scholar set out to identify every Fourteenth Amendment case heard
by the Supreme Court, the justices decided 28 cases dealing with the
rights of African Americans--and an astonishing 312 cases dealing with
the rights of corporations.


--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970