Originally "Robber Baron' referred to medieval knights, lords who charged illegal tolls to pass over roads on or near their lands. This usually meant German lords who did this.
During the 1900s the term was applied to industrialist who used unscrupulous methods to crush competitors, cheat employees of pensions and fix prices. It also was applied to politicians who used their positions to further their own ambitions at the tax payers expense.
An example was John Rockefeller who owned Standard oil. There were many. Note there is no problem with companies making profit they have to in order to stay in business. The main problem is the definition of reasonable profits. With some there is never enough profit.
A couple of more recent examples follow:
!n the 1950s The FDA brought suit against Upjon, squibb, Bristol, and 3 other pharmaceutical companies for charging an arranged price of $1 per capsule. FDA lost the suit because the court found that drug pricing was not in the FDA's pervue. Public outrage and exposure led to the price being dropped to 10 cents each.
There are more recent examples such as Mylan's pricing of the Epipen. One outrage involved the FDA itself when it gave exclusive distribution rights for colchicine to one company. The price went from 10 cents per dose to $5.00. This natural medication has been prescribed for gout for 3000 years (Egyptian papyrus listing). The excuse given was ludicrous. There are many more including generic drugs not being cheaper because of "pay to delay". This is just one sector of manufacturing. It also occurs in real estate and other sectors. Misuse of eminent domain etc. In the medical services (balance billing). The list of potential and actual abuses some people and companies engage in is long. But when it results in massive company or personal profits at tax payers expense when there is no benefit provided by their action many suffer lowered quality of life or wrecked lives.
There have always been some, but in recent years the numbers of Robber Barons have seemingly skyrocketed and some are brazen in their actions.
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Today's Featured Article - Earthmaster Project Progress Just a little update on my Earthmaster......it's back from the dead! I pulled the head, and soaked the stuck valves with mystery oil overnight, re-installed the head, and bingo, the compression returned. But alas, my carb foiled me again, it would fire a second then flood out. After numerous dead ends for a replacement carb, I went to work fixing mine.I soldered new floats on the float arm, they came from an old motorcycle carb, replaced the packing on the throttle shaft with o-rings, cut new ga
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