Word: robber
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...them. The Gilded Age was a turbulent period of unfettered capitalism and unfathomable wealth for them and their peers--an environment free of income tax, meddling regulators and other curbs on the animal spirits of freewheeling entrepreneurs. Yet these febrile decades, forever decried as the era of the robber barons, forged the tremendous engine of economic growth that propelled the country from rural isolationism in the 19th century to world industrial leadership in the 20th...
Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan were not the only robber barons, of course. Edward H. Harriman fought Morgan for control of the railroads. Andrew and Richard Mellon founded four major companies, including Alcoa. But the scale on which Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan operated was unprecedented, paving the way for a world of global companies and capital flows. And their money built a platform for philanthropy that has grown every bit as much as their corporations...
This Puritan disdain for ostentation is a cherished tradition. After all, Thomas Paine penned Common Sense hoping to liberate Americans from the grip of ostentatious English aristocrats. In fact, the most poignant lesson in U.S. history teaches that today's Horatio Alger (see Andrew Carnegie) is tomorrow's robber baron (see Andrew Carnegie)--unless, of course, the baron performs a useful public service, such as owning a pro sports team or three, like 60-year-old Ted Turner, who also recently gave a billion dollars to the United Nations for humanitarian causes. Turner was following the tradition of the Astors...
...gravy and a hairbrush and told `There you go.'" In "Real Estate," a woman named Ruth becomes so dissatisfied with her life that she finds metaphysical consolation only in firing guns. This story contain two plots, the other involving a man who loses his job and becomes an armed robber, only to cross paths with Ruth (for the second time, in truth...
...point isn't really that compassion has no place in the punishment of a President. The point is that compassion is always in order--just no more for a President than for a bank robber. Harsh verdicts should always be rendered with a kind of reluctance and regret...