Did Robber Baron's receive their names from the idea that they were robbing from customers?

Answer 1

The term is applied to any businessman or banker who uses questionable business practices to become powerful or wealthy. This comes from German background. There were individual German lords who charged inflated and exorbitant tariffs for ships traveling up and down the Danube and Rhine rivers through their holdings.

In the United States, this term was applied to the bankers and businessmen who arose from the industrial revolution of the late 1800's to have more control over the country than those who were elected and worked within the government.

The practices of the US robber barons led to the bankruptcy of the nation in 1911 and the formation of the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve banking system was and is actually a conglomeration of international banks founded by the very same robber barons who created the bankruptcy of the US through their loan and consolidation practices.

Through manipulation of currency and further consolidation of banking and industry, these same individuals created the circumstances that led to the depression in 1929. However, they became multi-billionaires in the process. Various "public works" projects were undertaken and the robber barons were provided with highways, the power grid including new dams and customers, railroad improvements, and financial win-falls in the form of massive cash flow from US treasuries into their pockets.

The public works projects when completed were purchased for pennies on the dollar from the government by the barons and they successfully stole billions more from the public to sell back to the people for the next 100 years at exorbitant and artificially controlled prices.

I am including some commonly known individuals. However, it is very important to realize that those businesses and individuals who survived the U.S. national bankruptcy of 1911, the forming of the Federal Reserve, and the subsequent depression in 1929 were most certainly associates of the most powerful, wealthy, and influential or they would have been gone through extortion--bribery--or financial strangulation or come to be owned by these individuals and their holding companies.

The names of those most commonly knows are below from wikipedia:

• Henry Ford
• Prescott Bush
• John Jacob Astor (real estate, fur)-New York City
• Andrew Carnegie (steel)-Pittsburgh and New York
• Jay Cooke (finance)-Philadelphia
• Charles Crocker (railroads)-California
• Daniel Drew (finance)-New York
• James Buchanan Duke (tobacco)- Durham, North Carolina
• James Fisk (finance)-New York
• Henry Morrison Flagler (railroads, oil, the Standard Oil company)-New York and Florida[5]
• Henry Clay Frick (steel)-Pittsburgh and New York City
• John Warne Gates (steel)
• Jay Gould (railroads)--New York[6]
• Edward Henry Harriman (railroads)-New York[7]
• Mark Hopkins (railroads)-California
• J. P. Morgan (banking, finance, industrial consolidation)-New York City
• Henry B. Plant (railroads)-Florida
• John D. Rockefeller (oil), Standard Oil--New York
• John D. Spreckels (San Diego transportation, water, media)- California
• Leland Stanford (railroads)-California
• Cornelius Vanderbilt (railroads)--New York[8]
• Charles Tyson Yerkes (street railroads)--Chicago.[
• The Rothschild banking family of Europe-financial
• The Kellogg, Brown, and Root Group-Oil, shipping, and legal
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