An Apologist View of History

  The 1930s in United States history were in stark contrast to the decade immediately preceding.   The Roaring 20s had been an age of growth and excess during which the horrors of modern warfare were exorcised from memory.   Life in the moment and the expansion of credit to fuel this view, per the Austrian Cycle Theory, set the stage for the Great Depression. [1]   The boom in the economy was followed by a period of stagnation, which in turn was followed by the bust of the Great Depression.   Many economic theories and models have been created to determine the cause and ultimate correction of the Great Depression.   Bernstein outlined many groups or types of these theories in his article “The Great Depression as Historical Problem.”   While all of the strongest theories modeled some aspects of the Great Depression, the work of Josef Steindl may have provided the closest theoretical model.   As capital is concentrated overtime.   Holding of c...

  In 1892, a young businessman from England who had settled in America found himself on the losing side of a merging between General Electric and Thompson-Houston.  Thomas Edison’s company was seeking to acquire Thompson-Houston.  J.P. Morgan backed Thomspon-Houston, forcing the acquisition of Edison GE, putting Edison himself out of business. [1]   The young businessman, Sam Insull, had worked to help build Edison GE and was placed into a quandary.  Faced with the prospect of working for the newly formed General Electric Corporation as a vice president or taking a substantial pay reduction to run Chicago Edison, Insull chose Chicago Edison. Insull would lead the company for over forty years, developing the municipal utility into the service provider for much of northern Illinois.   As early as 1903, Insull was looking ahead to the merger of Chicago Edison with the nearby Commonwealth Edison to enlarge the companies service territory. [2]   Insull, h...