People in government back then liked the idea of a High Speed…er…Transcontinential railroad, and wanted to do something to kick it off.

A lot of people in the private sector really liked the idea of the government handing them valuable assets and money for nothing, and greased a lot of legislative palms.

“Corporate cronyism,” a mutual backscratching between people running businesses and people running government (giving businesses a “gun” they should never have in a free market and governments the cash to gain and keep power) has been going on in one form or another for centuries. Countless examples. Chartered monopolies, royal grants, trade restrictions, subsidies…

I wish I could tell you that noble capitalists are dragged kicking and screaming into mixed and totalitarian economies. But much of the time businesses are more than delighted to jump into a situation where they don’t have to worry that much about making money or innovating, and competition is often legally forbidden.

This crap is so ingrained in our economy now I doubt you could ever pry it loose, but it would be nice not to move any further in that direction.

At some point, you get to where you can’t tell which are the pigs and which are the men. There are businessmen in communist countries, too.

Maybe if things had been done otherwise it would have taken a lot longer to get a transcontinental rail link. Probably involving eventual combinations and deals between local lines and property owners that would have been a dog’s breakfast of complication compared to the nice mathematical precision of a royal decree. But the result would have been healthier all around.

Was this a visionary undertaking by the federal government, offering contracts to build it, or was it driven by private industry?

A more accurate analogy would be Rep Weiner. Here’s a guy who was one of my heros. His downfall was so disappointing. But Ithe Democrats pushed him out, and I didn’t defend him here.

Imagine if he was in a race that could potentially swing his branch of government and he refused to resign!

The REAL difference with Akin is the GOP is trying to push him out for saying what they really believe.

Remember, the original premise being defended here is that government industrial policy is a great way (if not the only way) to create successful businesses and wealthy societies.

That someone can make some money from the wreckage of these efforts doesn’t validate the premise.

But wait, I keep reading, and there’s this:

On September 18, 1889, Hill changed the name of the Minneapolis and St. Cloud Railway (a railroad which existed primarily on paper, but which held very extensive land grants throughout the Midwest and Pacific Northwest) to the Great Northern Railway.

So, they bought the rights to the grants from someone who got them from Uncle Sam. Not uncommon at the time. Hearst did that in the Black Hills and created a company that exists today. More than one. Cattle barons of New Mexico used fake homesteaders to build enormous properties. They’d buy out, or drive out, the original homesteaders to expand their empires.

In my opinion, it’s the same thing. Uncle Sam got the ball rolling by giving something to private industry.

Or a solar energy company, a car company, the health industry, or any other endeavor.

Read this article too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9dit_Mobilier_of_America_scandal

Edited for linkage