On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 11:12:37 -0500, Ken Koester <kkoester at email.ers.usda.gov> wrote: > 19th century Standard Oil was far worse than Walmart could ever hope to > be, and 19th century Appalachian coal mining companies might have been > worse than that, not to mention railroad companies of the era > generally--cf. Twain. Or, just wait a few more years & you can live > through the horrors of the Gilded Age yourself & discover firsthand why > they were so bad. In both cases, competition hated the successful companies - but consumers got cheaper goods. So "worse" depends on whether you are a corporation or a consumer. -- Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/