Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism

by Srinivasan, Bhu

Published: September 26, 2017

Read: July 6, 2022

★★★★★

Goodreads

Review

American history through the lens of capitalism. It's like Sapiens where each chapter looks at some time period through the lens of a particular invention or economic explanation, but is less broad stroked and more generally unopinionated. Tries to offer unique perspective through this lens so offers much more on each topic than what is covered by most Youtube videos/schooling. It almost felt as if independence, WW1, WW2 were skipped over as it focused more on inventions and industries. Kept me engaged throughout with many interesting historical facts. Covers huge breadth from financing the Mayflower and tobacco plantations to the innovation of department stores to the rise of suburbia and Rockefeller. Key Idea: Capitalism was always a partnership between private markets and public funding or regulation. A careful decision between tradeoffs.

Notes

Intro

• India is 3rd world finishing school creating talent for first world
• Indians that moved to Americans were more revered in India
• Hindu mother and immigrated with author from India
  • Halloween of free candy that he had only tried 3 times in his life blew his mind
  • Author switched schools constantly
• Rise of internet
  • Got job at early successful preipo company
  • Got VC money and imploded before 24 for news aggregation
• Rationality of market
  • Some stocks doubled every few weeks than dropped 99%
• Would people care about American democracy if it wasn’t rich
  • 88 days of labor in America can but a car
  • Immigration for purchasing power not freedom

Part 1

Chapter 1 venture

• mayflower beginning
  • How did religious separatists get transatlantic voyage with crew and supplies to start new life
  • In Holland
    • Religious separatists left England for Holland, and were generally doing ok but mostly hard labor like cloth making
    • Younger members were leaving church for more opportunity
    • Had freedom in Holland but want mor economic opportunities to attract more people
    • Elders thought it would become secular within a generation without change
  • Virginia company for England
    • Wanted settlers ready to die
    • Virginia would give an ambiguous amount of permission for religious freedom though it was illegal in England proper
  • Financing
    • Very risky as overseas likely to lose it all
    • English financiers for venture capital
• Economic tools
  • Joint stock
    • Limited liability so can’t lose more than you put in
    • Traceable stock instead of partnerships
    • Can have multiple investors decrease risk for each
    • With sufficient prominent investors, also let privateer and pirates get some political support if winds change
  • Privateering was known for large losses and gains
    • Drake got 47x
  • East India 1684 and Virginia a few years later
  • Virginia company
    • investors could buy a share
    • Or you could go to Virginia and get one share for 7 years of work
    • Company would own everything
    • After 7 years, land would be distributed to share holders
    • Owning land in me world for just labor was intincing
    • Turned out to be a disasters, people kept dying or going to India
      • Many bailouts required
    • Loved Holland group
  • Final deal
    • Original would be 4 days for venture, 2 for private, sabbath
    • Instead final was 6 days for venture
    • William Bradford leader
    • Pilgrims barely made it out for fall with ship frayed because of negotiating
  • Half of mayflower were just settlers going for investment
    • Not refugees, spectral venturers
• Late November hoping for Hudson River, instead much more north
  • By end of winter, 2-3 deaths a day and only 8 able bodied able to care at worst
  • By March half had died
  • Mayflower was supposed to return with furs, wood, etc for investors, but came empty
    • Threatened with pull of finance if next ship sent with more settlers and wood came back empty
• Indians were crucial to pilgrims financing
  • Beaver skins valuable
  • Native Americans had great practice for their own clothes and preparing pelts
  • Have glass beads, blankets, knives, and utensils as they can’t create intricate stuff
• Fur and wood on ship gave over 30% return for venture, but the cargo was seized by French privateer
• Went from collective farms to family farms and people keep what they made which made even women work hard
• Needed more money
  • Colonies borrowed at interest rates more than 50%
  • Pilgrim assumed debt and personal responsibility of leaders for all the land, investors got fur trading rights
• Beavers rapidly disappeared, Indians were less useful
• Mayflower was 25 year ventur with contract outlasting most of pilgrims

Chapter 2 Tabacoo

• Indians massacre of 300, 7k pilgrims but left only 1k
• Virginia charter was revoked and it would be ruled as a colony because couldn’t keep people safe
• Drakes with enough tobacco got domestically grown,
  • 1600 smoking pipe became wealthy staple
  • John Rolfe, planted better tobacco seed and was colony salvation
• Virginia turned to tobacco
  • , real risk of food shortage
  • Every man must plant 2 acres of food or tobacco would be confiscated
• 1619, first slaves
  • Company got 3 pounds per orphans to send them to Virginia
• Slaves vs indentured servitude
  • Early indentured
    • 7 years of indentured servitude to get land and shelter
    • 487 whites were servants
    • 23 slaves this early
    • Demand side
      • Slaves require upfront investment, but Virginia was so inhospitable people died very often. Indentured servant dying is cost less or even profitable
    • Supply side
      • A huge demand in the West Indies for sugar which was closer
    • Maryland after Queen, would be just built on British Catholics
      • 1672 founded
      • 75% came as servants
  • Later Slaves
    • As land became more scarce,, mortality decreased, and England got more stable, less indentured
    • King Charles of England gave monopoly to slave trade to a company because they wanted to get in the game
    • 1674 more slaves imported than previous 25 years combine
    • 2k 1670 in Virginia, 1700 16 k 1/4 of population
• Basically trouble in Europe causes colonies population to swell
• Two benefits
  • Religious tolerance
  • And generous land grants
• New England has sabbath and least religious free, rest wanted money
• Carolina offer 150 acres per member of family that comes over, slaves were counted so slaves were majority of the colonies
• No cash crop in New England, got urban occupation
• Tabacoo, super important
  • Virginia and south got tabacoo with plantation being unit of town and huge wealth grow too
  • Tabacoo from Maryland and Virginia was 80% of export from colonies
  • Scales of farming, entire slave communities with families and so new slaves.
  • Native slave never was free so barely knows what freedom to chase or how
  • Plantations like to borrow against future crop to smooth seasonality
    • Even George and Thomas would depend on London benefactors
    • Tabacoo sent to benefactors and sent back luxury goods for high life
• So many rivers just went directly to sea instead of having a centralized port in Chesapeake bay
  • Trading went to north instead
  • Trading had new information flow and so greater opportunity so north would come to dominate eventually

chapter 3 taxes

• 1754 join or die with snake, first political comic for Union against French
• French had trading posts with Indians and forts to protect them, British created Ohio company from British to settle the land
  • Tenuous peace until French and Indian war
• Franklin wanted common purse among separate colonies, there was Great Britain collective already though
• 7 year war until 1763 when British won but treasury depleted and so much army required
• Stamp act was first imposition on many local autonomy, tax in any educational degree, land, documents, leases, newspaper, any type of gov filing
  • Taxes lead to collective action and protest
  • One year after, parliament summoned Benjamin Franklin to distinguish from external and internal taxes
    • External commodities imported
    • Internal tax forced by people, can’t marry or make contract so can only ruin us if we don’t pay
  • Thought colonies would eventually revolt if just this small revenue of less than 1% of their income
  • But instead stamp act repealed
  • Americans tasted power of collective action
• After 7 years, British started taxing external imports and sugar act for commodities
  • Now obvious taxing import and export could control what goods could be bought and exported so favored a British interest over colonies
  • Boycott so British could barely pay for administrative not even standing army
  • Smuggled tea lowered tea revenue though it was one of the few taxes not repealed after protest
  • First shipment of new tea with less taxes would make it price competitive but taxed by British
  • So Boston Tea Party with painted faces dumped 45 tons of tea
• British closed the harbor and revolutionary war would start within years
• Thomas Jefferson had tons of books and grew up elite
• What would rich, elite in American gain by chaos of revolutions?
  • Huge debts from Virginia Tabacoo planters to British , so freedom from creditors
  • George Washington wrote many letters complaining of price of luxury and Tabacoo
  • 2/3 of Virginia was slaves so restriction of their arms during tension was making them fear a slave revolt
• British could give freedom to any American slave that escaped or fought back
• With 3/5 compromise, Virginia would win most presidencies for the foreseeable future

Chapter 4 Cotton

• Had wind and water mills, but steam engine produced power much faster and everywhere even during bad seasons or days
• One of first was cloth creation as many labor intensive steps
  • Cotton pulled seed, beaten and smoothed, fiber spun into thread, thread into cloth
  • Division of labor with Adam smith
  • Cotton price lower created new demand and created new forms of work interestingly
• Nations specialized, Eli Whitney of Yale had cotton gin and America found its specialization
• Cotton gin, Eli failed to monetize well
  • Thomas Jefferson secretary fo state reviewed the patent application and basically asked to be early company
  • Monetizing failed because of patent infringement
    • Eli went with working directly with growers and keeping 1/3 for themselves
    • But the invention was so good and mechanic easily grasped, it basically asked for patent infringement by not licensing patent
    • Eli couldn’t keep up with demand and capital and building it himself cost high interest
    • Modest improvements bypassed patent
    • Eli’s early facility burned down and at the end of it so many infringing units it didn’t have advantage
  • Eli just started suing but seemed dumb to many in south
    • 50k for patent when South Carolina bought it for state and barely let him pay off debts , but eventually sued
• Eli with his fame eventually just pivoted into muskets, got huge gov initial order
• Louisiana purchase
  • Spanish gave French land, and Jefferson sent Monroe for new orleans and could get $10M
  • Monroe instead went over their mandate and bought entire place for $15M
• US prohibited new slaves and slave holders wanted to make their own holdings better
• Cotton , us economy and dropped cloth price
  • South Carolina and Georgia started with cotton because Eli was there
  • Went to mills of England
  • 70% if worlds raw cotton at 1 B pounds and by far biggest sector of us economy
  • Virginia became slave exporter and cotton tracked negro price
  • Changing clothing became necessity for world

Chapter 5 steam

• Steam engine on boat self propagation
  • allow easier to go against the grain and better use of rivers
• Finch, the inventor of the steam boat
  • got monopoly for steam engine in New York to draw investors, but couldn’t figure out how to make it economically viable and lacked capital
  • Finch monopoly revoked after 10 years and killed himself without economic success
• State monopoly cost nothing so New York State legislature gave it again several times with 20 year monopoly if he hit a milestone
• Livingston found the solution in France
  • Fulton in France wanted to make mariatime super weapon like submarine and torpedoes that would create mutually assured destruction and so naval peace
  • Fulton went with massive paddle wheel and massive engine, considerably larger than anything before
  • 133 feet long and 5mph compared to 3mph of milestone
• Every major River would now have steam boat and got monopoly right until q1827
• Livingston also negotiated Louisiana purchase and then made it accessible
• Livingston New York monopoly passed to children
  • Gibson, didn’t want to pay to operate ferry to New York
  • 23 ferry operator, Vanderbilt need steam and capital and started working for Gibson
    • Later called him the toughest he ever knew
  • Gibson went for all state monopolies for sea unconstitutional as regulated at federal level
    • Gibson won and only federal government has right to regulate interstate commerce
• Vanderbilt
  • Commercial and creature of the market, law rank meant nothing only power
  • Saved not spent, lived and works in gibbons boats
  • Vanderbilt got one of the route and comiidioned his own steam boat at 33,
  • Vanderbilt would enter route and undercut by 50% and then sell his boat to the incumbent to get bought out
  • Competitors avoid entering his market

chapter 6 canals

• Appalachian west had few people
• Steam boat made water way faster than land especially through mountains
  • Great Lakes area was easier to transact with New Orleans than Atlantic colonies
• Canals could connect interior and East and were just ditch to connect two natural bodies of water
• George Washington andPatowmack Canal company went for a canal through Virginia
  • Could to make up for Virginia past Tabacoo fortunes
  • Investors kept not coming up with money and Washington became President
• Fulton made plan
  • wanted huge canal for large boats
  • 360 mile is largest canal in history of world, connecting Philadelphia to Pittsburg through Pennsylvania
• Height of mountain was problem, going up mountain is hard part wasteful to go very far around
• Jefferson gov had surplus cuz of land sales and wanted to invest in infra
  • First Arguent for federal infra as even though it wouldn’t cover cost it would benefit citizens and cohesion best for states
  • Dug many canals like 20 miles for 20k a mile across US and spread across different states
  • One huge canal in one state was political nonstarter
• Hercules in newspaper wanted to connect Albany and Great Lakes, 6M cost
• Jefferson thought 350 miles was crazy
• New York with steam boat success pressed to make canal
  • How to pay? 6M cost, entire federal budget was 8M
  • Erie Canal became Clinton’s state of New York mission went for public ownership but wanted private money
  • public bonds to pay and private investment could get dividends
• 1817 construction began for 363 mile Erie to albany
  • New York used explosives instead of slaves digging
  • Dupoint made explosive for first 60 years
  • Eminent domain
  • 1.25M revenue thought per year
  • First public project with bond connected to revenue stream, revenue bonds
  • 7.8M cost and opened sections and traffic grew immediately
• Erie Canal
  • 500k thousand within 20 years estimate, but passed that in 10
  • Goods form Cleveland could be in Chicago in days
  • Huge part of us could be accessible
• Canal mania
  • New York paid nothing and canal mania in other states started
  • Small canals snaked into states and millions of acres became within dozens of miles of a canal in Ohio and rest of us
• Before land value was about how much can you made and transport
  • With canals, land value skyrocket as about growing
  • 1850 ports were New York and New Orleans
• New York City benefit from steam boat, canals , and government

Chapter 7 railroads

• Canals dominated only one generation
• Coal demand, but could have tracks to move coal instead of house
  • Add iron and wood to make more stable
  • Steam engine to pull trains on track??
• Iron house got to 30mph and became biggest coal users
• Railroad growth slow in 1830/
  • North took time as Canal mania consumed capital
  • American iron underdeveloped as British train mania consumed their iron
  • Railroad would undercut canal profits so why would states fund it
• Limited liability corporation
  • Finance railroad
  • Allowed stock market ad can’t freely but stock if liable for everything it did before
• Eminent domain
  • Prevented extortion and allowed efficient paths
  • Announcement of railroad would make land prices jump in that area
• 1837 deep recession
  • Killed canal financing and made railroads speed up as more cost effective
• Notice even American capitalist here isn’t lazziez foster, with huge government requirement with eminent domain, llc, monopolies, bonds
• Adam smith called capitalists philosophers observe everything and combine
• Vanderbilt gets into railroads
  • through ferry’s got about half a million, a fortune
  • Noticed a train and a ferry was faster than the fastest ferry, and he just resolved to get into railroads
  • Vanderbilt had great thrift and was low cost
  • Sold steam boats to train companies for shares in the company so combine route could be longer
  • When he made a competitor to a route, the stock price fell enough he assumed ownership
  • Would own railroad even without laying track
• Immigrant flood, 1842 100k
  • Ireland flood of 1.2M running from potato famine
    • 20% off entire population of Ireland came
  • Ready work for railroad laying
    • Would advertise in New York to fresh immigrants to come west with cheap land, subsizieized gare, and reliable employment
  • 400M capital investment
  • New York, Indian, Illinois, and Michigan biggest railroad kids
  • Chicago and Illinois became huge hub of railroad commerce

Chapter 8 Telegraph

• most tinkerers fail, but few who get it inspire next gen and American capitalist deploys it as fast as possible
• 1830 got info at speed of light, 1749 learned about electricity ⚡️ and battery
• Often signals were done with telescope and many posts sending messages through sight
• Yale graduate Morse, Europe, portrait artist
  • Sequential taps to communicate message of dots and long dots
  • Put on back burner for 5 years
  • Morse saw some signal ideas about telescopes and reinvigorated his Morse
• Telegram was mind blowing
  • Instant message passing, removed time from the equation
  • Presented to President and Congress
  • Was very poor at some point as deals fell through , the fact he wasn’t explotiated by capitalist is really a market failure
  • Senate gave Morse 30k, literally the senate
• Long Morse test gave convention results of Henry clay as fast as conversation
  • Called like teleportation, first use of electricity
  • Stock arbitrage, railroad info
• Morse decided to license patent and was estrnemely low cost 1:100 cost of railroad
  • Rapid lines next to each other between any two points that could require them
  • Private speculation with instant usability
• Morse and partner Cornell got patent license and got shares instead of cash for places like western Union
  • Cornell founded a college
• Railroad would often make telegram right along track to allow usage and repair
• Women worked in this office with considerly lower
• Andrew Carnegie got telegram job

chapter 8 gold or goal

• Marx
  • Capitalist got powers of government but not the social obiligations
  • Workers became appendage of factory
  • Communist manifesto
• Texas annexation was politically weirdos slave state and aggravate mexico
  • Got white that exceeded Spanish population and declared freedom from Mexico
  • Defining border of Texas caused Mexican American war and CA and manifest destiny complete
• Associated press combine cost of telegram messages for fast news
• As Spanish gave up ca, gold was discovered in CA. God loved America
• 1848, gold rush in CA and people traveled
  • 50k a day from Sacramento and San Jainism River, 15-20x wages than East
  • Ships arriving has their entire crew abandon
• Easy fortunes with huge advantage for early with best land
  • Prices 25x for blankets and pickets
  • Gold rush shifted to gun powder than picking and so people coming became part of support
• Well Fargo started as transport company from west to east, if holding valuable should do baking as well
• Trans ocean voyage being so cost effective pushed sail ships to become obsolete with steam engine advances
• 1849 CA wants to be state but Missouri compromise makes it difficult because of slave vs free state power balance
  • In last decades free state and burgeoning population
  • To allow ca to enter, fugitive slave act

Chapter 10 slavery

• 436 butler island slaves needed to be sold for debts though they had lived there their entire lives for generations
• Runaway slave, should property be returned. Constitution said escaped slaves needed to be returned
  • Fugitive slave act created teeth in 1850 fueling tensions
  • Uncle Tom’s cabin of sold slaves and mother and child rubbing away to not be sold separately
• Work connected to slavery, so white farmers working hard looked down on as for poor
• Know nothings
  • Native born working man
  • Anti whatever associated wi t poor like religion with Irish Catholics
  • Anti slavery as slaves anti working man
• Popular sovereignty letting state vote to become slave or free, but settlers just rushed in and some violence in bleeding kansas
• Republicans
  • Similar to know nothings with abolitionists, immigrants, proper price western settlers
  • cA free soil and Fremont first run that lost
• Dredd Scott, slave brought to free state so is he now free
  • Even free blacks, could not be considered citizens so can’t sue
  • Said Missouri compromise limiting slavery was unconstitutional
• Slave auction of butler island
  • Look at bodies for health and disease and deformity, ask questions to understand and also to shore other tears you know niggars
  • Lot 1 family of 4,
  • prime cotton man 27 prime rice woman 26 6 and 4 boy child
    • Sold for 2480, man for 1.2k, woman 900, child less than 200 each
    • 1300 prime cotton,
  • Prime means no health or physical deformity and no history of running away
    • Could sue for damages if not prince
  • Woman were worth less but expectation of child, marriage reduced chances of running away
  • Young man in late teens and older twenties were highest
  • Very old slaves were negative value and not sold
  • 700 average price
• 2.8 B value of 4M slaves in South,
  • longest railroad cost 25M, all rail road was 1B and all the gold found in California
  • 20 year of federal annual budget
  • Was largest asset class in all of America
  • Pegged to white gold, cotton
• 1857 cotton was half of us export
• Usually land is center of economy, but in south could own land and human labor
  • Human labor could easily be moved and used for collateral easily unlike land
  • Slave could borrow against slaves on ongoing basis
• Factors would finance cotton growers and advance funds and broker loan with banks
  • Widely accepted collateral was future cotton or slaves
  • Banks had Slave holding pens for when needed to liquidate collateral
• Owning slave was sign of having made it, renewable source of wealth and best investment for men of small means and trust funds
• Loose credit as slave prices climbed in 1860s indicating little threat in this asset
  • Average price of 1k now even for young
  • Decoupled from cotton prices and just seen as appreciating asset
• With huge asset, could you actually free slaves??
  • Southern could no more free their slaves than Americans can donate their mortgaged homes to charity

part 2

Chapter 11 war

• 1839 harpers ferry, John brown was abolitionist and violent hoping to lead armory takeover and slave revolt
  • Indictment of north as south thought he was terrorist
  • 3k federal troops guarded John Brown as north had support
• Lincoln election
  • Lincoln was mostly a lawyer but was congress years ago, got famous with some debates against slavery and great speaker
    • Is slavery right or wrong?
  • After Lincoln won without winning one southern state and being against slavery, the south seceded
  • 6 states not part of union by the time Lincoln oathed
• Could new prez mobilize army?
  • Would men die for holding onto Union when south willingly secedes
  • Fort Sumter in South Carolina started war
• First order was to create telegraph and railroad for war, 25 Andrew Carnegie in charge of telegraph for ynion
• New war
  • Near real-time info on telegraph office to coordinate
  • New warfare was prolonged
    • tactical victories were harder to take advantage of as army would have to walk as reinforcements came on railroad
    • Instant info made surprise victories less impactful
  • Stalemate would be south victory
• Iron input was constantly needed to maintain railroads
  • South started running out and started only maintaining critical lines
  • But south cotton for iron should have happened, but north blockaded the southern ports
• British owned Indian which produced biggest ingredient for gunpowder
  • 3k tons of gunpowder ingredients purchased in British but blocked by British
• Opening move of blockading south before it could receive war supplies was a critical move
• 1864 cotton fell 93% because they couldn’t sell it overseas
  • British industry suffered as cotton mills and iron exports fell substantially
  • Indian and Egypt skyrocketed cotton
    • Us Civil war is listed as one of the most crucial events in Egypt history
• Union north boomed with a strong federal government needed for war
  • New greenback that must be accepyed
  • Could get bond with 6% interest paid in gold
  • 3B federal debt, and stimulate economic activity
  • 1862 approved transcontinental railroad without south political arguments of where it would be
    • NYC to SF in less than dozen days
  • 100M physical gold left Union after gathered from CA gold rush
• Draft
  • Carnegie and Rockefeller were in their 20s
  • Could pay $300 for someone to take your place in draft, so these industrialists could not fight
    • JP morgan spent 300 on cigars
  • Recruited overseas to get new man with ticket, fight, and new money for life in America

Chapter 12 oil

• Whaling ships would be sunk to blockade south
  • Metaphor for new America as whales wanted for burning oil, but new tech regular oil from ground
• Kerosine oil company
  • Coal oil, kerosine started being sold for lamps
  • .5 per gallon of oil
  • Oil just seen as annoying liquid
• Edwin drake
  • 1859, drake creates drilling technique
    • Notice same time as civil war
  • $20 gallon as much as golfamrer got rich selling their land rights
    • Was .1 at source of oil because so costly to transport
  • Without barrels some men would put oil back in ground competing for resources with war until wooden barrels improvised
• Oil
  • America propelled into national strength by being main oil producer
  • Oil men would bet it all on striking it rich and bankrupt on not finding goal
• Rockefeller
  • 4K in capital getting wholesale produce especially to Union army
    • 17k profit in 2nd year
  • Refining oil more reliable compared to cost of entry
    • Refined was 42x cost of input
  • Sometimes called a Bookkeeper
    • Rockefeller cared about economies of scale and chasing loans and forgoing profits got him in trouble with partners
      • 72.5k to purchase the entire refiner business from partner
• Oil grew full scale supply chain entirely within in America
  • Transportation
    • First mile
      • Teamster with horse carts made first mile most expensive
      • Oil Pipes?
      • 1864 two inch pipe with relay pumps.
        • Replaced 300 teams working 10 hours a day
    • Railroad
      • standardized large tank carts making smaller operations harder
      • Railroad incremental margin was huge, but high capital
  • Standard oil had 3% market share
    • One area of competitive advantage was transportation cost as oil commodity
      • Transportation cost was all about size
• South improvement company, group of oil producers negotiating with railroads
  • Cartel negotiated with railroad and would create standardized oil ship prices for all
  • , but kickbacks for all(even those not in cartel) would mean lower true costs for those in cartel which would be huge competitive advantage
  • Standard oil told 27 of Cleveland oil companies that they would no longer be able to compete with cartel pricing, 26 sold out to standard oil
    • This was considered standard oils original sin on which future achievements should be considered
• With all of Cleveland refiners, standard oil could negotiate itself

Chapter 13 steel

• gilded age, gold or whaling voyage with new opportunities
  • Failure temp setback
  • Strive, American stories referenced shares
  • Path to morality and grace was through the honest dollar
• Wall Street, could through trade control major operations thousands of miles away
• Andrew Carnegie, telegraph boy.
  • 1860 came of age like Rockefeller
  • Carnegie became conduit for railroads to invest in new companies
  • At 30, had small fortune and stopped working for others
  • Would have many companies and negotiate deals with his connections with Pennsylvania railroad
    • Would sell bonds and have his own construction company do the dea buying his own steel
  • Carnegie questioned his own commitment to commerce 3 years into his independence, 1868 set limit of 2 years to secure fortune
    • Spend surplus on benevolence, cast aside business forever and settle in Oxford making friends with intellectuals
    • “To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares …must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will resign business at 35.”
  • Steel making process Carnegie got rights for in us
    • Steel replacing iron in England
    • Bessemer process, for iron to shell
      • Needed high quality iron ore
      • 1845 us found huge high quality ore deposits
  • Carnegie would make one of the largest steel plants in world to make steel train rails, 1873-1875
    • Timing couldn’t have been worse
    • J Cook war bonder failed and bank run until economic standstill
    • Carnegie went down to 2 weeks of runway
    • Great Depression caused years of deflation
  • Carnegie would say when it comes to wealth accumulation, you should put all your eggs in one basket then watch that basket
  • Steel was more cost effective than iron cuz lasted longer, watch costs and product sells itself
  • 55 sold at 66 so profit of 9 profit per ton
  • In business with capital investment, steel company strat was to collude and fix prices
    • Bessemer steel association was legal cartel to establish quotas with agreed upon prices
    • Why eliminate competition takes time and profits, better to lobby for more of cartel quota like Carnegie did
    • Carnegie often violated his quota as his lower cost made him profitable in every case
    • Hated even more efficient British steel, solution tariffs at 28$ ton like 30% tax
      • American did grow to largest steel industry in world, not lassez fairs

chapter 14 machines

• Spencer would look at market of ideas and survival of fittest when it comes to languages, instructions, and organizations
• Railroad cross congenital was final imposition on plains Indians while coastal already overtaken
• Buffalo hunted for meat for train makers, but exterminating them meant exterminating Indians as army knew
  • 1889 buffalo had few hundred left from tens of millions just a half century earlier
• Huge German immigrant middle class unlike Irish
  • Managed to impose their culture on America with breweries and language living together
• Budweiser lighter beer for America
  • Pasturazation and glass bottles allowed longer storage and more distribution for Budweiser entrepreneur
  • Brand and trademark so much more valuable than all the industry
  • Huge Value of trademark was new
• Colt, smith and Wesson, helped Union army and developed machining skills
  • Typewriter inventor came to them, 1875
  • Remington became typewriter brand
  • 15-20 a week, better than many men and school teacher
    • Any bright girl could learn to be typist and brought thousands of women into office
• Saloons across America, temperance voice came from women
  • Slavery, immigrants, Catholicism, and temperance united under Republican
  • Men liked to drink
  • Temperance and women suffrage combined
• Saloon was center of men community, beer national beverage
  • Tax on beer and Tabacoo and spirits was half of federal revenue without income tax
• Womens christian temperance league, women suffrage and prohibition would eventually pass within months
• How would America balance its competitive industries collect its dividends

Chapter 15 light

• 1881 lightbulb on Broadway
  • Charles brush after civil war born
  • Telegraph was only use of electricity until now
    • Coal gas after burning coal was cheap way to light lamps
• Future light would have lighted streets with decreased crime and not smelly lamps in rooms
• Brush company had early monopoly on light for cities and commercial theatre, docks, etc.
  • we don’t hear about brush now
  • Required daily maintence and was unreliable enough only for outdoor
• Thomas Edison start
  • Would file 1k patents
    • Allow sending and recieving dual messages
    • Great talent for practical real applications
    • Patent would turn ideas into capital to turn into investment, 17 years
  • Would get great reputation and inventors would come to him
  • Liked investing more than
• Western Union telegraph company with Vanderbilt huge stockholder
  • Newspapers, trading and more with huge capital investments to increase wire capacity
  • Wanted dual telegraph from Edison, 500k
    • Western Union didn’t want to pay up and thought Edison needed money
    • Jay Goul stepped in and purchased for cash and stock for his minor operation with the great tech
• Next create long lasting light bulb for indoor use
  • Vanderbilt and JP Morgan would underwrite his inventions cuz he was so renowned
  • Took years to make lightbulbs that last more than a few days
  • Menlo Park
  • Vanderbilt mansion first wired up but wife didn’t like. Loud generator, JP Morgan instead got first mansion
  • 1882, innovation not indoor lighting but entire system of electricity turned on by a switch hidden underground powering small bulb
• New York, sidewalks had crowds and web of wires and manure
  • Telegram, alarm
  • Electricity had higher voltage and so actually dangerous
• Lightbulb competition
  • Byproduct of coal gave metered gas to homes that smelled, didn’t burn clean, but was cheap to light
  • Kerosene
  • Commercial went for house first
  • AC would become standard from Westing House
  • Edison General Electric consolidated all his patents with JP Morgan
  • 650k household and commercial customers by 1900, less than 5%
  • Took 5 decades for majority of us homes to have electricity
• GE would start financial eta headed by JP Morgan

Chapter 16 Retail

• Beecher argued women tasks of household and raising were as important as man work
  • Didn’t think voting was essential
  • Thought values and house making essential
  • Gardening, choosing furtonute, servants, book on domestic about buying not making
• Growing middle class didn’t sell but purchased almost everything it needed unlike farmers
• Marketplace quickly saw power of women in domestic spending
• AT Stewart came as immigrant teacher into store into billionaire and praised on death not for contributions, but showing anyone can be anything in America
  • 10 and Broadway, department store with one for each section
  • Congress had to make appropriation for presidents wife buying so much
• Department stores
  • No haggling, shopping became lesiurly entertainment, could wander for hours without having to buy or interact with clerk, no misrepresentation of good quality
  • Scale for international goods and price power
  • Large ad budgets
  • Cast iron palace
• Mail
  • One of biggest government functions before civil war was delivering mail
  • Rural free delivery across America
    • Opened up farms to consumer America
  • General stores didn’t get lower costs because they extended credit(risk) small far volume
  • Catalog Mail retail
    • Post office scams to send money
    • Montgomery Ward had catalog with 600 pages and no store with a money back guarantee
    • Sears started by selling watches with newspaper ads 1886
      • Sears started making its own watches
      • Sears would even point out the lowest prices might not last so long
      • Sears would even do free shipping on all returns when it switched entirely to pay upfront instead of cash on delivery
      • Cures for trickles, prompted, impotence, weight, pleasure , and more
      • Refused to sell spirits on moral grounds
• Seller could say anything To sell
  • Increasing calls for consumer protection from government as ref
    • Would increase cost but also trust needed for commerce and accelerate growth
  • Those who take most advantage earn most

chapter 17 Unions

• Huge material abundance and lower costs just one generation from bloody civil war
• Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Edison, and more all earned their place not from Harvard or Yale
  • Even founding fathers had more pedigree
  • This capitalism must be good with so many wanting to come
• Anyone could rise to top forgave excesses of capitalism
• Union going for collective bargain against companies
  • Communism is one large Union to overturn private property
  • Anaraist though no change could come from political system protecting itself
    • Power respects only power
• Push for unions
  • Gov police would protect strike breakers and factories
  • 1885 American largest Union perhaps several hundred thousand Knights of Labor
  • 1886 collective action across industries for 8 hour work week
    • Large scale threat in Chicago feared to actually cause 8 hour work day
    • May 1st huge push to not work on working weekend day
    • police shot several dead
    • Anarchist threw some dynamite
      • huge shift against labor and anarchists with middle class shifting against this mob rule and sensational
      • 7 of 8 defendants sentenced to death
  • Capitalist won this round
• 1880 Carnegie became super wealthy not even running his business
  • Gospel of wealth defending capitalism
    • Argued greatest of man, capitalist, should give away their money not give it to descendants so money becomes sign of greatness
    • Man who dies rich dies disgraced
• Charity
  • Rockefeller would even give away so much money without getting anonymous
  • Carnegie would find public library
  • Vanderbilt and duke to universities with Vanderbilt giving more to university than children
• Why not give the money of vast wealth while it was created with higher wages if it was gonna be given away anyway
• Increased productive with ma chines either meant lower wages or fewer jobs
  • Men just like any other resource to minimize
• Frisk I’m Carnegie homestead mill defended by Pinkerton in small town
  • Pinkerton worked for less than factory workers
  • Workers and Pinkerton fired and a few died and Pinkerton surrendered
  • Government came over by 8k militia
  • Anarchist double shot Frisk but he survived
  • One word message to carnage, victory
    • Some prestige hit for Carnegie
• Capitalist Could win battles but lose war if revolution, compromise would be path

Chapter 18 paper

• Cleveland would be only prez to regain whitehouse
• Democrat would be conferderates so Cleveland would be only dem prez for years
• Gov revenue
  • Mostly tariffs and liquor taxes
• Tariffs
  • Cleveland would argue tariffs were tax on consumer
  • Farmers were enemy because were exporters and other countries would retaliate
  • Was it just revenue or also company protection
• Newspaper for evening readers
  • Average newspaper was small text tight columns, with deep detail and speech analysis published in full
  • Pulitzer Would need rapid success when bought newspaper with depth
    • Would use white space, simple English with varying headlines
    • Stories would add theater
    • Target immigrants as one himself
    • Rather than politics, Pulitzer had large cartoon with one murder/saliticous crime/fire/court case and weather with horse racing
    • Reduced price to penny with times going for 3
    • One question for if you were a millionaire what would you do
• Panic as everyone runs for financial exits
• Used to have silver be able to mint, but then just gold when ratio got weird
• Panic of 1893, hit farmers pretty hard because deflation(less crop money but same mortgage payment)
  • Cleveland don’t be in go back silver which kept deflation
  • People hate wage deflation even if they could have more earning power
  • Personal income tax declared unconstitutional
  • Cleveland being so pro business caused revolt in dem party creating opportunities
• Hearst fam was rich in Nevada steel mines
  • Hearst father Got CA senator as just appointed by legislative at that time
  • Hearst son got morning journal in NYC
    • Art and 18 pages
    • Pulitzer winning lower class
• William Jenny Bryant,
  • wanted ‘free silver movement’ for inflation so debts less burdensome
  • Revolt against pro business of Cleveland
  • Gave one of most famous speeches in history
    • They say gold standard needed for business interests, but everyone even farmers or trader is a business man
  • Labor became democrat
  • Pulitzer rejected Bryan
• Hearst bet his paper on Bryan
• Adolf Ox, started in small town
  • Came to NYC during 1896 looking for capital for his small town paper
  • New York Times 1896 struggling with Pulitzer World, 7th ranked newspaper
  • Ox convinced shareholders to let him run it(with secret call option) and earn his shares without a penny
  • It has remained in his families control
  • Paper of record at time too wi to shareholders like JP Morgan
• Both Hearst and Ox came in their 30s
• Most consequently since 1860

Chapter 19 trusts

• Hearst told to look up for instant election results with a hot air balloon on election night
  • McKinley won over Bryan
  • Hearst sold 1.5M papers and didn’t hurt his paper
  • Hearst would take lead of paper wars over Pulitzer world
• Deflationary pressure and Sherman anti trust and price fixing didn’t hold with insolvency
  • Sherman act made price coordination illegal so huge mergers to do whatever pricing you want were the next step
• Morgan’s wouldn’t just sell, but would intervene to help their clients interests which is needed for large investors overseas
  • Was bridge between financial and industrial interests
  • Morgan would loan gov money often
• Alaska bought from Russia and gold discovered, GOLD GOLD GOLD GOLD headline
  • Loosened money everywhere with discoveries in Alaska too
  • Inflation started, in good times holding onto gold was less attractive as no interest
  • Production surged
• McKinley first year, huge consolidation into trusts for pricing power
  • Trust entity would own share of all the companies
  • New Jersey law could own across state lines so trust not needed
  • Trust was mostly for commodities like needle or ice or Caramel or biscuits
    • America, United, General
    • Easier to attract investor if you were to be trust and just got commitments to sell from a good majority of market in any industry
  • Was so speedy that public apprehension
• US now largest economy in the world with Spanish war win with Phillipines and gain
• after McKinley lost, went even farther in huge consolidation
  • 95% control of tin
  • 90% of steel tube
• uS steel under JP Morgan, 1901
  • Carnegie believed with his knowledge of steel that under any price competiton Carnegie would win
  • Carnegie was private and answered to no one at 65 but wanted to give money away
  • JP Morgan thought Carnegie steel was too powerful to leave alone in steel
  • Charles Schwab lead Carniege steel and negotiated with Carniege and J.P. Morgan
  • Carniege would quickly sell on handshake for 160M cash to Morgan
    • “Congrats, you are the richest man in the world”
  • US steel first company over 1B
  • Carnegie gave huge grants following his gospel of wealth
• 1901 chogash shot President McKinley and he died and teddy Roosevelt youngest prez in history and only 30
  • Teddy went to Harvard and went to safaris in Africa
  • Rough riders in Cuba
  • End of gilded age
• J.P. Morgan rolling up railroad into trust shortly after doing the same for steel
• Roosevelt in Dec state of union decided trusts should be limited and controlled as they were gov entity anyway
  • Secure Panama Canal and more navy and became 20% of federal money
    • Federal contracts became lever to influence all contractors
  • US railroad trust went to Supreme Court and Roosevelt won with 5-4 that it violated Sherman antitrust act
• Union miners wanted more money, 8 hours, and better working conditions(less death) 3 out of 1k died.
  • 1 in 30 chance of dying over 10 years
  • Now huge union and huge trust battle could bring entire industry to stand still
  • 7 business heads vs 1 union lead(a all powerful union)
  • Union would threat violence if strike breakers brought and business wanted federal troops
  • Head of army went to JP Morgan for help as he got railroads
  • Got better pay and 9 hour day
• Roosevelt would shape gov as balancing force between business and labor, he would never have been nominated…

Chapter 20 food

• Kellogg thought sex was just for making new people and fate of republic required rejection
  • Masturbation and meat was the worst
  • Candy strong essences excite genital
  • Kellogg cereal made for his wellness center
    • Vegetarian food and massage therapy and fresh air
• Post was Kellogg patient and started Grape nuts got big
  • Kellogg corn flakes wouldn’t have sugar
  • Post took from medicine industry arguing his cereal cured all
    • Would get trademark for Mr gold miracle cure
• Temperance drink Coca Cola
  • Cocoa leaf, Inca liked it, cocaine gave it their fame.
  • Cola and coca for caffeine with prohibition taking out wine.
  • Would avoid tax on drug by downplaying medicinal stuff
  • Some cures of alcohol had alcohol, often had morphine, alc, and more
• Patent medicine
  • Got hated on public ally, huge profit for newspaper
  • Patent medicine vendor would have a line in every contract that it was void of law passed on state regulating patent medicine
    • Light editorial hits on patent medicine in newspaper
• The Jungle by Sinclair, 1905 had 1 M immigrants, about Lithuania immigrant
  • Packing town was for industrial captives
  • Meatpacking in Chicago allowed cheap meat for many at multiple weekly meals a crazy luxury
    • 20% of us exports
    • Cattle would arrive on trains to be slaughtered and then refrigeratation allowed it to be sent worldwide
    • 1 large animal for every American slaughtered a year
    • Meat packets would use all of cows and pigs and even start cutting corners
  • Immigrant tried to be cheerful but was injured, explicated, and destroyed spiritually
  • But bigger were tales of sick cows and “chicken” would be waste of veil with spices and more
  • Book talked for unions and socialism, but more concern for meat quality
    • Unions didn’t like immigrants much
  • 1906 NYC thought jungle was not food related and missed the story
• Roosevelt wanted to outlaw debased food that could make people sick
  • Sinclair wrote to Roosevelt to send someone undercover to meatpacking to create report
    • Report was far worse than Jungle
  • Federal meat inspection act, federal gov would have inspectors at meat packing expense
• American capitalist required correction for excesses

Part 3

Chapter 21 Automobiles

• 1895 had 4K automobiles sold, 40 miles at 15mph with steam powered automobile
• Innovation was about new part creation and putting them together, internal combustion vs steam power(odor and noiseless)
• Detroit automobile company, ford inventor granted only sliver of ownership and pushed out like other inventors in automobiles
• Auto racing kept setting records and news big worldwide, afore thought he should first start with record breaking car
  • Even now companies push for racing wins to show engineering prowess
  • Dodge brothers gave engines for equity
  • Pretty undercapitalized
• Consumer had to regulated for cars to thrive
  • Automobile owners register and get licenses with eye tests
  • Road ways and spotlights needed to make it all work
• Efficient production but made space for prisoners and weird, Ford became early titan
  • Ford rejected that the customer was always right and went for standardized(no customization)
  • Model B at 2k, Mode F at 1k, 1905 hit 2M sales
  • Ford thought largest market was lower
  • Model N at 600 had 40% of car market and Ford owned 51%
  • Ford kept growing ownership stake and got profitable
  • 8 different model early
  • Then had one model, model T for years
  • Ford disputed companies purpose is to make money, thought money was fuel, ingredient for industrial artist to make the products he chose to
• General Motors
  • In same Model T, Buick boy made 8k per year by 1908
  • Was bigger with more expensive cars and got more investment
  • Merged kind of trust and got General Motors
  • No enduring icon or great benefactor
• Model T, only in black
  • Tech marvel with 4 cylinders at 20 hirsepower
  • First vanadium steel, Light and strong
  • First started at 850 price which wasn’t cheapest
  • Goal was to build great car then lower price
  • 1911 200k total not just T vechiles purchased
  • Made a car familiar for repairs lowering price
  • More familiar something was the more a new family on the road would be comfortable buying it first
• Ford 1913 moving assembly line from meatpacking
  • With study of production, cut manufacturing labor costs and time by 4
  • Division of labor monotonous , but work sucked
  • Ford had 26 cents an hour and doubled it to $5 a day, 8 hour shifts
    • Excluded women
  • Mandated English lessons and had people enter worker homes looking for saving rates and gambling and drinking problems with punishments for work
• National hero Ford, automobile became new beacon of freedom for American industrialism

Chapter 22 radio

• Us navy had wireless communication as telegraph was better
• 1912 titanic crashed and sent wireless distress
  • Times Square displayed real time survivor news from sea, new
  • 25% stock price jump of wireless companies because obv how life saving it was
  • Taft Gov Order hobby operators to stop operating and put airwaves under federal control
    • Interference would make wireless waves useless, so gov needs to recognize it as property
• Woodrow Wilson beats Taft because of spoiler Teddy
  • Us had highest wages even with huge immigrant population
  • China and Japan good, British and France still have power, Ottomon waning
  • NYT headline, “Russia invades Germany, Germany invade France but doesn’t declare war, Belgium invaded” etc
    • Civil war people still alive in 70s
    • Big populations of both sides
    • British ship Lituashia kept sailing under US flag and Germany really wanted to avoid US response took ads out in American newspaper warning of taking ships in contested waters
    • Neutrality officially, but huge exports as American factories became engine of British and France wars with huge loans
  • Wilson call for declaration of war
    • Days before Wilson’s second term, Germany would increase all imports open game and would kill the billion dollar industry
    • with Russia revolt taking big player out
    • US had no standing army, but overtook industrial capacity
    • 12.7B Total spending while just 1916 before 734M dollars
      • Would never fall again below 3B
      • War bonds
      • 16th 1909 allowed income tax and it would exceed all other revenue
      • Gov became largest customer of largest industries
    • Draft
    • American participation with huge industry and fresh troops was difference
    • Seized or bought patents
• Radio lowered cost of bananas as could route ships to grab banana with refrigeration
  • FDR would have GE not sell key patents and tech for radio to other countries
  • GE with RCA wanted to sell music boxes to transmit entertainment and music
    • Deal making for tons of patents coordination and founders were huge companies like Ge, att, and Westinghouse
• radio stations would be funded by radio sellers, no att started having ads
  • Primary station then wired to local wireless broadcasters
• GE, Westinghouse, and RCA would make National Broadcasting Company(NBC) with att infra
  • CBS would compete with them
  • Distrib it e national content to local stations
  • Listen to same thing at same time nationslly

chapter 23 bootlegging

• Prohibition so improbable,
  • Democratic National with millions of drinkers and salons and fifth largest industry
  • But big tide
    • Outlet for growing women power
    • Moral crusaders and many including navy discouraged use
    • Lowly immigrants associated
    • Only in favor was those who like to drink and those who get rich
    • Breweries were German immigrants
  • Fed gov used to taxes drinks as huge revenue source
  • First explored just Temp war ban on social for resource saving, but brewery against it to huge backlash
• Jan 1919 18th amendment approved only bans only manufacture not consumption
  • .05% alcohol
  • Allowed for homemade cider and wine and religious ground and medicine
    • Drink to god and health
• Wine grapes exploded as demand grew for at home stuff going 2-4x price
  • Drinking Americans exerted at state level after probation passed to make amendment loss teeth
• Urban saloon with lunch and liquor companies were shells of themselves
• Alcohol consumption dropped to 30%
  • Huge affluent stock up in cellars before it passed
  • Prohibition did remove them from poorer classes
  • Huge rejection of law generalized with every sip as rich could drink but public couldn’t , distrust in gov
• Harlem 1920, the greatest negro city in the world
  • Migrated over past decade attracted ambitious and musical talent
  • Jazz came to define age
  • Nightlife and speakeasy were together and brought in interracial and woman as with breaking laws already why not social convention
• The great gatsby, Gatsby got wealth from drug store
  • Walgreens boomed as great front for medicine and bootlegging
  • Huge supply chain of paying authorities off
• one small town had politics and crime just merge into one with just free saloons and brothels
  • Expanded in Chicago with the protege man, Al Capone
  • Little Italy would have poor Italians brew in their houses for easy work
• Capone took over for his mentor at 25 when a rival gang was trying to kill him
  • 1925 emerged as bootleg leader of Chicago
  • Scarface, new archetype as a catapults organization, a bootlegger gangster
  • Capone openly admitted he was a bootlegger, took out Chicago tribune story talking about giving up on supplying booze and gambling, “99% of Chicago drink and gamble”
    • Chicago never owned anything and works only be linked to income tax
    • Capone gotten four income tax, made cover of time, courted fame and attention
• New York, 5 families and one for each area
  • Killing would need to be voted on and Italian descent required
  • American Mafia

chapter 24 banking

• 1920 consumer age with new appliances and cars and radio
• Us became world lever with huge trade surplus and budget surplus
• 1920s huge stock market hype
  • 1920s did pump and dumps and huge stock market hype with people making millions just in stock which is easy
  • 1/3 as much loans as banks deposits
  • Monday October 21st,1929 would be huge crash with rca(radio) falling hardest
    • Over 6 days, lost 1/3 of value
    • With three years Dow would be fraction of even this
• Hoover faith in capitalist and recession as market correction means it should just play out, but modern economy was different
• Huge collateral damage not just on risky stuff
• With huge collateral losses, banks and people would have to sell huge range of assets to cover losses
  • Small banks would fail without deposits being backed even if they had much more outstanding loans than despoiters but didn’t have enough money to give out
• Rumors would cause bank runs
  • New York Dec 11, bank of us would suspend operations and was huge bank
    • Some cal this one of the greatest mistakes of federal reserve
  • “Bank of us had failed” was ominous headline
• World war caused gold standard with huge gold backing
  • As American banks failed, us gov needed to decide how to help with either reducing taxes, federal reserve buy bonds, public works programs, lower interest rates
    • But looseness of this policy would cause foreign banks to withdraw international deposits and gold
  • Instead us committed to gold standard which caused deposits to move from weaker countries like Bank of England
  • then numerous countries left gold standard like England to start recover
• Hoover couldn’t relief banks and keep gold standard so no American relief
  • Deflation makes dollars harder to come by and debtors get fucked
  • Employment to over 15%
  • Cars production halved
  • farm income fell by 33%
    • Food production was steady but prices were half
    • Huge farm loans stayed the same
• 1932 American treasury no longer seen as solid with such a weak economy and unrest
  • caused run on American gold and worst of both worlds
  • Financial tightening to keep gold standard
• FDR won entire rest of country to fix failing policy
  • As he won, gold standard faith gone as gold run
  • In some state, all banks stopped even the god before FDR took office
• Fdr took office, we have nothing too far but fear itself
  • Called for war time power
  • All banks would be closed for 4 days as well as stock market until he wanted to reopen
  • Called to compel hoarders to turn in gold off gold standard
  • Radio would give everyone president knowledge
  • Would make beer legal with tax
  • Stock market would open to huge 15% rally
  • Bank deposits increased instead of decreased as it reopened
• Huge escalation of government in peacetime
  • Federal deposit and exchange act would regulate banks and stocks
• 66% Dow increase in 1933 and 40% in 1935
  • Some think depression lasted throughout decade, as there was recession in 1937-1938
  • But 1938 was significant improvement from 33
  • FDR won 46 of 48 states
  • Now government was actor of last resort with economic growth all about government success or failure not market

chapter 25 film

• voice and video together was great innovation for film to hit new heights
• Hollywood was all about million of movie goers to be engripped as opposed to logistics or resources
• Gone with the wild was blockbuster book from Atlanta Georgia
  • Film rights for 50k
  • Needed 2-3M but Ben hur was costliest of 4M
• Cartel of studio system
  • Lavish set could be used once
  • Audience might not like it
  • Art posing as business
• Lowe, metro Goldman mayor
  • First motion pictures were shown as part of vaudeville showings
  • By 20s Lowe started in vaudeville but had motion picture specific theaters in NYC
  • Major investment was capital of theaters and usually had exclusive product for movie
  • To guarantee exclusive, would buy a studio and several other studios combined
• Warner brothers made jazz singer with voice and video together
  • Theaters needed new tech
  • New tech made it immune to slow down in 1930
  • Only one to stay independent during Great Recession
• 5 major studios that owned their own theaters: 20th century fox, mgm, rko, lowes, Warner brothers. And theee minor studios: universal, Colombia and United artists
  • Studios had actors on contract with their own lots and camera and artists
  • Theater tier system with first and second class
  • All cartel and control was to smooth out risk of industry
• Gone with the wild would partner with mgm needling connections and actor
  • Could cast actors and directors and trade their contracts like sports stars across studios
  • 4 hour gone wild
• 1937 Walt Disney had parallel force to studio system
  • Huge draw with biggest star, Mickey Mouse
  • Needed distribution, but they needed him too
  • Generally was short films
  • Snow White was feature length film would mortgage all his company assets with 1.5M
    • La first for Christmas in 1937
    • 1938 set box office records
• At the time, wasn’t standardized price
  • Usually major openings then road show across country with high exclusivity to maximize revenue then wide distribution with cheaper stickers
  • Gone with the wild thought high price was sign of quality but wanted wide distribution
  • Supporting actors of gone with the wider Recieved award but couldn’t enter primer in Atlanta or stay in great hotel
  • Gone with wind is highest grossing of all time

chapter 26 flight

• German economic stimulus would make massive military growth
  • Against treaty, but major powers doesn’t care with their own economic problems
• Great German avaiation and pilots
• Sudenland
  • German put forces on border
  • Chamberlain pressed for compromise and let Germany get portion of sudenland then stop
  • Chamberlains proclaimed he prevented war to elated crowds
  • Lindenburg, pilot?, would fly German airplanes and was smitten loving Germany
  • By March it had all of Czech Republic
• 1940 US had neutrality act in 1935 which pushed for neutrality
  • British instead of collecting Germany debts just got us debt forgiveness instead
  • Us sympathized with Germany too
    • Germany didn’t have colonies
  • Germany announced liquidation of Jewish assets, Holocaust
    • Less nationalistic but different
• Germany economy was good for us especially us automakers as they were majority of German automobile production
  • Gm and ford couldn’t take out their profits
  • Germany asked GM to make the top secret aircrafts it was making for us in Germany
    • Instead the factories were just seized
• Germany Japan and Soviet Union had militarized their economy already, least prepared was us
  • Germany core was strong air force
  • Roosevelt realized he was weak and went for huge military expansion and especially mass production of airforce in 1939 years before entering war
    • aircrafts not barracks would scare Hitler said Roosevelt
• Sep 1 1939 Germany invaded Poland and UK and France declared war
  • Isolationist sentiment in us
  • Churchill was head of British navy again
  • Roosevelt pledged to try to repeal neutrality to uk
  • Arms embargo lifted in us and they were in the business of war
    • Everyone wanted planes as predicted
    • America would become supplier of Europe war and huge peacetime buildup
• 1940 got Holland, Belgium, Denmark and France
  • Us noted problem was AirPower
  • Germany did plane bombing of London
  • Us produced 50k war planes per year
• Roosevelt won 3rd term
• ford very worried his company would be taken over and lead airforce method
  • Ford would build engines designed by rolls Royce
  • Ford pulled out when he thought it would go to British
  • Ford was biggest part of us life but now his methods used for something he didn’t believe in
• So engines made in Detroit for manufacturing in ca , car makers became war
  • Ford production chief wanted largest factory ever over 1 mile in each direction to make one bomber an hour for 18 hours a day
    • Within 4 months, broke ground
  • 1941, federal spent 3B , 5x peacetime increase
• June 1941, Germany invaded soviets
  • America starts supplying China and Soviet’s
• Dec bombed Pearl HaborJapan and unanimously senate for war
  • Capitalist basically stopped for next three years
  • Everything even film studios started producing propaganda
  • Manufacturing ready despite lacking politics will
  • Beyond self sufficient for resources
  • US drafted all to fight, in wartime you belong to the government and all property rights could be erased
• Manhattan project and television, jets, and computing
  • America contradicted idea that innovation comes from private industry
• America was pragmatic with victory
  • got permanent military bases around the world
  • Japan and Germany would become the second and third richest countries with American markets open to both
  • Both France and uk receded losing colonies
• Free enterprise would be elevated to democracy justified on its philosophical grounds

chapter 27 suburba

• Central planning did have waste, with one Air Force speech noting how much cigarettes and electric fridges they had so they weren’t even unpacked
• New generation of america not of prosperity
  • 1910 came of age in depression
  • 1920 born had Great Depression and 18 hit WW2
• GI gave 52 weeks of unemployment at 20/week, living and education expenses, loan guarantees for houses or businesses
• Way too little homes as people came back
  • New construction dropped during recession and war
  • To solve people started building while towns
  • Government guaranteed repayment and allowed up to 30 years at up to 95% of home value
    • Used to be just 10%
    • Any GI could buy with no down payment
• Where would the homes be?
  • In all the lands surrounding cities
  • Levitt bought surrounding farm lands and would make entire town
    • Could buy plot and materials and hire workers yourself
    • At price points never seen before with completely identical homes
    • Built with specialized assembly line
    • Single floor with living room, kitchen, two small bedrooms, and bathroom with ya Ed
    • Built 4K homes in a year most of anyone in Levittown
      • 7999 dollars with book shelf fridge and washing mahh chp one
      • Price didn’t adjust ot demand and some camped out to buy
  • 15M new homes financed
    • To use Levits model and have cheap prices, need cheap land, vast wide open spaces for assembly line and construction
      • Could sell homes as they were finished not entire project like a building
• Entire generation of families would be within driving distance of city
  • Male commuters, wives at home, and community all about raising kids
  • People criticized bland sameness as cultural, economic, emotional wasteland
    • Elite perspective as farms weren’t idllyic and long hours and small area in city with no time
• Suburbs would be driver of American culture
  • Before WW1, could have over 1M immigrants but between 1931-1945 fewer than 700k often
    • Lowered gap as Between classes as no longer huge uneducated block
    • Increasingly more about which suburb you lived was class differentiator, minor
  • Native born Americans with American war culture all intermingled
    • Huge mix of American blood grandchild had no major ethnic group
• The Orgnaization kid, inconspicuous consumption
  • Don’t stand out too much, just show you have a little more taste or money
  • Upgrade suburbs if you get too different
    • Average house was owned for 7 years, got rid of long term communities of generations
• Schools was paramount concern for these new govs
  • Free education for all in small town
  • Bulk of local taxation for children and school was center of classes
  • School became a primary way to judge these small towns
• US steel building large plant on Delaware River
  • levingston would make a huge town here again
  • He publicly said he was motivated by making a lot of money
  • Would not sell to black
    • Made economic sense as 90-95% didn’t want black neighbors
    • Can either solve housing or racism not both
• FHA put out underwriting manual gushing quality of neighborhoods
  • Judged by economic stability, access to utility and transportation and shopping
    • Also protection by from adverse influences, prevent home sale to certain racial groups
• In levingston, one desperate buyer sold to black family
  • Angry mobs screamed of hundreds outside house, National news
  • “He’s probably a nice guy but I see hundreds falling off my home value “
  • Couple still settled down
• children of peasants from Ireland moved up to white neighborhoods and slaves made it to city blocks reserved for white immigrants

Chapter 28 television

• rca supercharged with war tech but just behind in consumer
• Radio stations were great business model with national burgeoned by local stations
• Television with one time cost would have free movies, sports, and news and overtake radio
  • Big stars transfer from radio to tv
  • I love Lucy would come from radio and have her actual husband
    • Lucy you got some splaining to do
    • Huge audience more than inauguration
    • Would own episodes and sell them to CBS
  • Within 9 years tv would exceed radio revenue
• Ronald Reagan
  • grad in 1932, voted for FDR, father lost store and got job with public works
  • became sports radio host for Chicago cubs
  • Hollywood at 26, making propaganda and head of actors guild
  • Antitrust ended studio system with theaters and studios both owned
    • Stabilizing contract system for actors eroded
    • TV would hurt movies even more, gov intervention bad changing Reagan’s view
  • 1954 Reagan host of tv for General Electric theater with famous actors doing little skits
    • 1956-1957 Was third on television behind Ed Sullivan show and I love Lucy
    • At ge would visit plants and talk to employees which let him speak and hone political message
• Joseph Mcarthy saw world as battle between communism and democracy and invade from within
  • creeping communism of China and Russia
  • First term senator
  • Handsome high level employee, heist, was convicted as Russian spy
  • Suspect other of communist
  • 1952 national figure made evening news and would question universities and army
  • Edward R Murrow in see it now, showed McCarthy contradicting himself and terrorizing pattern
• Television was national politics
  • Eisenhower and FDR tv debate
• Pro football had huge growth
  • college subsidies it
  • Risk of injury limited games to once a week,
  • compared to very often baseball games, American past time
    • Attendance fell throughout 1950s with movement to suburbs
  • Washington, LA, Chicago, SF, Cleveland, Baltimore, nYc, Pittsburg, Green Bay, Detroit
  • Football was great television with coach like a general and game evolved
    • Each team would negotiate their tv deals
    • Football would have few weekly games made each one can’t miss and perfect weekly episodic
  • Hilton and other rich wanted to own football team but NFL didn’t want to expand, so they created AFL startup league
    • League wide deal woul give each team guaranteed money higher than some individually negotiated
    • top college player would come to AFL
    • AFL championship game would be super bowl
    • NFL and AFL would eventually merge as equals

Chapter 29 roads

• 1956 Sanders at 65 had gas station, motel, and restaurant along road in NC
  • Fried chicken was fast and pressure cooker
  • Kentucky fried chicken franchised with secret recipe
    • Supply to restaurants and get royalty on 4-5 cents
    • 200 restaurants would get in 2 years
  • 1964 sold to franchisee for 2M
• 1956 33B highway bill
  • Called greatest public works project by Einshower
  • to connect all major cities of over 50k
  • On-ramps and off-ramps would kill existing towns and business
• Restaurants now to be built for cars and roads
  • Meatpacking insipid assembly for cars, then brought to food
  • Needed to go cup since you could turn over customer faster, disposable cup so you don’t have to stay return and clean it
    • Krock would buy one multimixer to make 6 milkshakes at the same time
  • McDonald brothers needed multiple of these milkshake machines
    • Krock wanted McDonald’s to franchisee so more milkshakes
      • successful man tended to have money but didn’t get their hands dirty and didn’t follow directions well
      • Best was gritty couples who worked themselves as they just execute the system
      • A good successful franchise would then get another restaurant
    • Great efficiency in orders and long lines
    • Would hit 2k locations by end of 60s and revenue of 1B
• Highway didn’t let you see towns just landscape and iron
• In less 25 years, trucks exceeded railroad in transporting
  • With suburbs everywhere needed to allow trucks to go straight from factory to store instead of truck to railroad to truck
• Discount store would sell everything as cheaply as possible in volume
  • On edge of city, shopping carts, and limited personnel and huge parking lots
  • Seller waiting on customer was intrusion
  • Brand from television was important
  • Stores usually got sales but sometimes struggled for profitability with competition especially family shops
    • Loss leader would have best items at discount loading money to make up money elsewhere
    • If you sold just one type of item or were small store couldn’t make it up as rasily
  • Sam wagons Walmart dominated south starting Arkansas
    • Was about information and logistics
    • Roads would attract locations with traffic patterns and good truck access
• Car growth outpaced population growth especially high schools
  • Urban core of every city declined and city associated with decay
  • Extraordinary government incentives and central planning accelerated great transition
• America was largest producer of oil from 1859 since first usage and made cars much cheaper
  • Country would consume all its own oil and even import it
  • America started running trade deceits in 1970s

part 4

Chapter 30 computing

• Robert McNamara from ford would become secretary of defense
• Einsenhower would note important military preparedness and huge ready industry but warned of military industrial complex
• 3.5M worked for military more than top 20 companies combined
• IBM got huge gov investment
• Census of 1890 seeded information
  • Young Herman holiwrath had idea for holes in punch card to represent any data
  • Machine that could mechanically add punch card
  • Electrical pins would or wouldn’t pass hole and count as fed through
  • Could be used repeatedly to sort cards
• Computing tabulating recording (ctr) company in early 1900 would become ibm
  • Punch card used for company info keeping like banks and huge stuff
  • Changed name to international business machine(ibm)
  • Payroll machine
  • All Roosevelt public works needed ibm machines and was ibms biggest customer
    • IBM used for Soviet 5 year plans too
    • IBM punch card used for every army recruit
  • Magnetic tape would be smaller and cheaper
• Punch cards could do 4 additions per second while circuit could do 5k so IbM reinvented itself
• Sage a computer the size of a building would be able to detect and calculate path of incoming enemy plane and calculate which jets and middles should intercept
  • Introduced networking that would pull in military data for each computer
  • Half of ibm computing revenue until 1950s
• 60s space race as Sputnik gave Russia better vision and rocketry
  • Ai and self driving cars was future with space odessey 2001
• Walton would become richest man in America and was called the best user of information ever
  • Would say his advantage was early computing investment
• Market so hot in 1962 that one young salesman made his annual quota by middle of jan
  • Quit to found electronic data systems(Ed’s) to sell companies programming services as they didn’t know how to use their computer
• Vietnam still lead to us loss with crazy info and tech
• Performance funds became rich in 1960s, jfk and mlk killed
• 30-50-100x earnings for Eds as computing prized on Wall Street after 6 years would be 150M
  • Pero owned 9.5M shares and employees got 1.5M
  • IPOd at 118x earnings
  • would hit 1.5B being first tech billionaire
• Vacuum tubes became transition more and Silicon Valley forming

Chapter 31 startups

• July 1969 moon landing on tv
  • Shuttle service to moon just a decade away
  • Capitalist or socialist moon?
  • American program relied on many private suppliers with contracts to subsize research on huge scale
    • Second step was private companies using this government contract to create valuable intellectual property
• 8 engineers at shockley who invented transistor left to create Fairchild semiconductors lacked unlimited upside
• Warden buffet at a college and Rockefeller invested in intel from these Fairchild engineers
  • Would build multiple processes in a microprocessor
  • Calculators and finance
  • IPO in 3 years final step of Silicon Valley startup and the playbook set
• Venture capital funds
  • Entrepreneurial with them finding investors and getting 20% carry
  • Would have one huge win fund all the losers
  • Many Venture capitalists were graduates of semiconductor like KP and Sequoia
    • 3 of 4 top companies would be funded by these
• Financing venture capital changes the startup game
  • Designed to become very big or completely fail
  • About increasing huge outcome rather than modest returns
• 1971 would have tv and controller, computer space was first game, arcade games with Atari
  • Pong was sensation arcade unit
• 1970s Nixon, Japan doing good, Vietnam losing, oil crisis
• Steve Jobs hired at Atari when he showed up and demanded a job as a college dropout
• Live free hippie culture in Berkeley with computer industry
  • Young men would be mercenaries with equity, if they got rich we’re difficult to manage. Instead of one organization forever
• Bill gates and Paul Allen with computer kit Altair
  • Would offer programming language, basic
  • Would get hired to bring his friends
• Home brew primer club in Altair silicon valley Steve woz would call this one of the most important nights of his life
  • Would work to create keyboard to show tv
  • Everyone was impressed including Steve
  • Jobs saw Atari with a controller and wanted keyboard
  • Started apple while gates over in Harvard
• Similar start time
• Apple was started in a garage, would get initial order from local store, vs gates
  • Through intro with sequoia, got a manager and money onboard
  • Rockefeller arm would get into Apple too for Apple 2
  • 1980 sales exceed 100M within 4 years
  • Jobs hit it big far before Microsoft
• Steve Jobs was adopted
• Gates got congressional page and computer in posh high school
• IBM reached out to Gates for programming language and dos or central operating system
  • IBM gave gates rights to license their os
  • Apple vs ibm, but rival wasn’t ibm but other computers wanted the software
• With IBM push, Microsoft os would become national monopoly as everyone wanted the standard
  • Gates profitable from beginning going to Seattle
  • Gates wasn’t even a corporation for first 5 years it was a partnership
  • Gates would go
• Meanwhile jobs was fired

Chapter 32 finance

• Berkshire Hathaway working on textiles from small industrial town, warren buffet bought it on stock market
  • Textiles were dying business with overseas labor
    • he tried to buy latest equipment but everyone was doing that
    • so he would just squeeze out profits and invest elsewhere
• Higher oil prices decreased spending elsewhere
  • Small light fuel efficient Japan automakers
    • Steel industry became rust belt
    • Chrysler became insolvent as Apple went public
  • US electronics overtaken by Japan
• 1980 finance Wiltshire and Rodeo drive, Milken watched corporate junk bond market
  • Bonds were basically loan as you would get principal back
  • Junk bonds required higher rate of interest
  • Undergrad at Berkeley in 1960s
    • Saw diversified junk bonds did much better than any other bonds
    • Market misvalues worst bonds and overrate mid bonds
  • Even government bonds and Chrysler bonds were undervalued
  • But there weren’t enough junk bonds for milkens operation that discredited by financial institutions but solvent enough to pay debts
  • Milken found entrepreneurs with little cash for Murdoch who bought tv networks bundled into fox and guy who rebuilt Atlantic City
• MTV, ESPN were in demand challenges so needed bonds to do capital infra to get more cables for channels
• Berkshire Hathaway by 80s owned large stakes in insurance and newspaper and more
  • If just aimed to maximize profits, he should have shit down the textile capital and sold it off
    • Buffer argued that he had a responsibility to local communities even though there was better uses of capital
    • Later buffet apologized in 1986 as nothing worked in loss making textiles
    • Middle ground between capitalistism and socialism
• CEO started holding most power as shares became so dispersed
  • Gleeful entrepreneur of 80s
  • CEO corporate raiders were new villains
• Corporate raiders, financial raider, would buy and liquidate companies deciding to murder communities to maximize value
  • Don’t blame me it was dead already
  • Opposite of startup entrepreneur but instead of creating destroyed
  • Junk bonds became ship for financial entrepreneurs
• What if financial entrepreneurs raised money with Milkens bond markets
  • Now financial entrepreneurs could raise enough to purchase entire companies with junk bonds and the assets could be used to cover the collateral
  • Taking out mortgage on rental property and having rent pay the mortgage
  • Created pedigree owners fighting against financial upstarts
• Now conglomerate like Berkshire would just buy other assets with no Syngery.
• Private equity was corporate raider
  • Leveraged buyouts became norm
    • Borrow to buy stock not hostile with company management on board
    • kkr would take public company private to make it better
      • Would buy Tabacoo and snack maker for 25B
  • Karl Icon got 30% in TWA airlines and so it agreed to be acquired
    • Icon gave concessions to union and got their support and he became their ceo
  • Karl icon industry became modern private equity
• Wall Street Gordon geicko loosely based on icon, “gecko would lament the fact that even decades later men would approach him in restaurants to tell him how inspired they were by his role to pursue a career on wall street”
• Call girl could be moral compass for financier

chapter 33 shoes

• Dapper Dan gwould just buy luxury goods and desconstruct it to create anything from seats to custom clothes
  • Dan clothes signaled success for sports, music, and local drug king pins especially blacks
    • This trifecta make blacks culture leaders
• By 1980s, white had fled from most urban cores except some places in Manhattan
  • Blacks inner city hit as hard as factory towns
  • Crime soared
    • 1980s black inner city murder rate was as high as Mexico in their drug war
    • Young blacks by early 1990s had 1 in 500 of dying and most likely to die
    • NWA
• Hip hop and rap life with violence, pursuit of money, and most capitalist art form
  • Reverence of money
  • Some rock bands kept being about pain even as they were rich and too many albums would taint it
  • Rap was about one of their own making it big, aspirational
  • BIG, 10 crack commandments, JayZ, put me anyway on earth and I’ll make it big
• Micheal Jordan,
  • tennis had biggest shoes and deals were pretty small for basketball
  • 150k per year
  • Nike offered special shoe and 500k for Jordan, almost as much as salary
• In 1966, football and many teams didn’t allow blacks. 1984 mostly no discrimination
• League would fine Jordan 5k a game for wearing his shoes debut 6 months after
  • and it would make 100M by the time it was replaced in 1986
• OJ Simpson and Ash were marketable to whites without urban authencity
  • Micheal Jordan appeal to both black and white
  • By 1988, Nike had bo Jackson in footbal and baseball
    • Jackson did both baseballs and football calling NFL his hobby
• Bo Jackson and Mike were most marketable men of 80s and were born months apart in the south a few years old when mlk gave his I have a dream speech
• Nike
  • Knight met with Japanese low labor markets
  • Knight thought low cost shoes imported would be killer
  • Would be asian distributor then make their own shoes
  • Early 70s 1 in 12 shoes were sneakers by end of 70s it was 1 in 4
    • Boom in running
  • Growth rate mimicked growth of Apple
  • Japan quickly became too expensive and outsourced to Thailand and Malaysia and China
  • 1985 Nike would not make shoes but go for cheapest quality, high margin marketing and brand with low cost global labor
• Jordan didn’t take racial stands as he felt beyond tace
  • Casual use of the word nigga
  • Jordan’s were coveted item and black poor youth would buy
• High crime
  • 2p years of republicans in New York
  • Jordan’s father robbed and killed with his car
    • Jordan stayed slight on race but even he couldn’t escape crime
• Jordan was so successful he became a team owner

Chapter 34 internet

• Clinton talked about information superhighway
• Every old new thing would be pulled into this new thing: tv, electricity, computers, mail, banking, real estate, and shopping
• Computer networks and atm were normal in 60s
• Even post office had speed mail and terminals connections
• AOL
  • New company would make modems for Atari home gaming units and new way to download games online, failed
  • Text based Apple link to get text and news
  • American online renamed
  • Gave customers access to controlled content of tv listing, email, messaging
• Information superhighway would have all media companies and banks directly sharing their content and info
  • Internet is movement of humanity onto the open network
  • 1980 academia and military uses
• CERN was in psyhics and best conversation were in cafeteria
  • Link ideas within papers with messages
  • Ted Nelson coined term hypertext to link documents
  • World Wide Web of hypertext and hypertext transfer protocol and html and url
• University of Illinois they would create Mosiac the browser and cern released core to public domain
• Marc Anderson was 23 year old, Netscape
  • Marc most active programmer of mosiac
  • Clark found Marc, he was finished with mosaic but instead decided to kill
  • Netscape would create best stock market mania and modern gold rush
• Why internet in America?
  • America had unique idea to fund ideas, with losses for years as public stock market to absorb risk
  • In Europe, no single market with 100M
  • English is international standard
  • America loved the hustler and leave for dreams of making money
  • UK leaving for making money is not refined, is refined is bad
• Jeff bozos quit to participate to sell books via internet
  • Amazon.com in 1994 to sell books
  • 33 rob glazer was at Microsoft executive instead
• Clark bought mosaic engineers and went for Vc money in Netscape
  • In first 3 months, revenue was 5M and charged server and computer makes for tools
  • In 1995, Netscape would ipo at 15 month old and would double on open day
  • Fastest growing software company in history
  • Employees would get millions and huge employment cal
• Mania based on internet as collective acknowledgment of inevitability of internet
  • Legacy business would try to preempt upstarts by moving online
  • Netscape stock kept going up
  • 9 month old yahoo would go public and founders made 100M
  • eBay had no real life corralary
  • Hotmail acquired by 350M in less than 9 months
  • Microsoft huge beneficiary of movement online
    • Microsoft made internet explorer and bundled it instead of selling like Netscape
    • Netscape practically killed by internet explorer
  • AOL was the most stable business with monthly dial up and ads
    • 3B subscription and 1B in ads
    • 1999 175B valuation
    • aol bought Netscape
    • Time Warner merged with aol on 55-45 basis with aol stock getting 55% of new entity
      • Time Warner had substantially more revenue and profits
      • Great shareholder heist every
    • Within year aol turned out to be a blip
• As market cooled, companies sense they couldn’t quickly go public pic so valuations cooled and best customers were other internet companies so huge pull back
  • Efficient market hypothesis gave idea market price couldn’t be off by 100
  • 95% value shed
  • A decade later TW spun off at 2B(198B less than peak of bubble), TW owned time, radio label, Hollywood studio crazy value
  • Internet bubble Happened so quickly and wstefully
• Amazon and eBay did emerge with online banking and yellow pages going online
• Google just grew without care for revenue or investors

chapter 35 mobile

• 1997 Apple computer time had past and Apple lost the war in its dying niche
  • Steve Jobs had lost his role because it can start with innovation but need business type
• Jobs bought animation studio for 10M and founded Next
• Jobs next success was at same time as Apple struggles so Apple bought next for 400M
  • Apple posed to lose 1 B and began to sell manufacturing facilities
• 2000 tech dropped 80% with Enron and 9/11, America euphoria ended
• 2001 Apple continued manufacturing in America and Ireland, but instead started using oversea manufacturers
  • Apple pivoted into its own retail store in 2001 as others went online
• Music privacy huge on new internet, movies and shows were heavier so more music
  • Apple and computers couldn’t help but make devices and software to play all the songs
  • To many record labels, job was ceo of movie company so had unique connections
  • Record labels struggled with business model
  • If Napster became large enough, hope record labels would give in instead forced out
• 2003 got labels to give songs for $1 with iPod
  • iPod challenged Japanese dominance in electronics with Sony
• Two big experiments of democracy vs socialist
  • North Korea vs South Korea had vastly different outcomes and west and east Germany with same culture
  • China did not became democratic like everyone else
    • Didn’t have expense of military or ideology purity of russia
    • Separated capitalist with dmeocrqcy
    • Free markets, free speech, free elections weren’t not a package
• Us didn’t have pure capitalism
  • Tariff on steel was essential
  • Federal loans for houses and banks backing
  • Farm subsizes
  • automobile bailout
  • Social security
  • Balance between state regulation and free markets
• China had crazy growth in last 3 decades
  • Started with just shoes then all electronics
  • Predict to supplant us
• 2006 iPod surpassed sales of computers
• 2007 iPhone
  • didn’t have the full keyboard
  • Stunning difference in functionality
    • most popular razor was the flip phone
    • Had maps, music, photos, web
    • Microsoft laughed at the $500 price because it was the most expensive phone and didn’t appeal to business customers without email/keyboard
  • In less than 8 years, sold 600M
• Apple became Most valuable company despite 2008
  • Some countries skipped computer and just used phone
  • Online movies, on demand, mobile utilities, Facebook, Instagram
• So why did it feel America being left behind despite Apple taking off
  • Left and right complained, because the system seem rigged and narratives lost
    • Profits privatized and loss public
    • Even Tesla and banks got lifeline from gov
  • Chinese worker making 200 per month and us knowledge from Apple
  • Buy America became free trade as low prices great
    • 500B trade deficit
  • India doing white collar work
    • Even customer support and programmers went to India
  • America didn’t make anything anymore?
    • Largest food producer
    • Largest housing
    • 3rd largest car
    • Largest oil producer
    • Planes and medical devices
    • Farm and construction
    • Tech with self driving, apps, and more
  • We missed some former glory but it was pretty bad
• But there was never a prime time in America
  • 30s depression
  • 40s world war two
  • 50s 30k Korean War and drills for nuclear war
  • 60s 3 political assassination and Vietnam
  • 70s oil crisis, economic trouble, high inflation
  • 80s Japan paranoia , aids, and street crime
• Income inequality ignores the dramatically increase of quality of life
  • Crime drops dramatically
  • Racial progress with Obama
  • Computer accessible for all
  • Lag between early adopters and rest was so fast
• 45 years shut most laborers out of production as value mostly went to high value labor
  • Can common man be a high value consumer without being a high value producer
• Steve Jobs let Chinese made phone be bought by India without touching America but America profited
• America had always used democracy to curve industry excesses