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 - Listening to Your Tractor - by Curtis Von Fange. Years ago there was a TV show about a talking car. Unless you are from another planet, physically or otherwise, I don’t think our internal combustion buddies will talk and tell us their problems. But, on the other hand, there is a secret language that our mechanical companions readily do speak. It is an interesting form of communication that involves all the senses of the listener. In this series we are going to investigate and learn the basic rudimentary skills of understanding this lingo.
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