Sarcophagus........................."how much money does a bird...

Sarcophagus

.........................

"how much money does a bird need to construct a nest, a beaver to build a dam, or bees to build a beehive?"

.........................

I understand what you are getting at but it doesn't seem like a fair comparison. Many third world subsistence farmers don't work for money but survival, and it's no picnic.
........................

"we may consider ourselves to be superior, some folk work for free, but it would be hard to get someone to work in a factory manufacturing cluster bombs without some naked emporer's financial incentive.

........................

Naked(or sartorially elegant) emperors couldn't buy many cluster bombs without taxation and couldn't fight many big wars without conscription(of either people or resources).

........................

"'white' man speak with forked tongue - "Undeterred, though vilified for the first time by the press, Rockefeller continued with his self-reinforcing cycle of buying competing refiners, improving the efficiency of his operations, pressing for discounts on oil shipments, undercutting his competition" (wikepedia)"

.........................

Buying competing refiners and undercutting the competition, all aimed at ultimately reducing competition.

I read something once about that era, when big businesses seemed unstoppable. Most of the original Dow Industrials and Dow Transportation members are long gone(General Electric being only survivor I can think of)and basically these businesses are there till the wheel turns and then are gone, in other words while there is a social need that they fulfil, they exist and not a moment longer. I don't know if it absolutely true or not but there seems to be a big- picture grain of truth in it.

..........................

"there is lines in sand and there is lines in stone."

...........................

Nice line!

............................

"just out of interest, were you reading up on guy fawkes today?"

............................

Guy Fawlkes, the only man to enter parliament with honest intentions lol. No, I wasn't reading up on him, any reason I should?



cheers