The villain of "The Swimmers" is a rich, vulgar banker who preaches an updated version of the gilded age's "gospel of wealth": "Money is power … Money made this country, built its great and glorious cities, created its industries, covered it with an iron network of railroads".
Weekly departures throughout 2010 California's picturesque railroads offer a fascinating way to see America's Wild West, whisking you past giant redwood forests, rugged coastlines and historic gold rush towns that might otherwise take days to reach by car.
It led to the construction of railroads to bind the settled eastern states to the Wild West.
As the government itself stopped issuing new bonds, and started retiring old ones through the sinking fund, investors turned first to foreign-government securities in the 1820s and then to shares in the new, capital-intensive companies, such as railroads, leading the industrialisation of the 19th century.
The decline extended across all regions, though Europe suffered most.Special report The gated globe Railroads and hegemons Too much of a good thing Just in case In my backyard The hidden persuaders A question of trust What kind of capitalism?
It spurred the laying of the railroads, making Leland Stanford rich.
Citing the chaos of the global downturn, a growing number of companies, including Unilever, an Anglo-Dutch consumer-goods firm, Costco, a big American retailer, and Union Pacific, one of America's big railroads, have decided not to give annual earnings estimates for 2009.If ever there was a moment for firms to keep their crystal balls under wraps, this may appear to be it.
The railroads directly enabled the development of the catalogue retail business.
If so, why is the word so conspicuously avoided?Stephen MorrisCoorparoo, AustraliaSIR – Populism in America reached its height in the late 19th century and was embodied in the Populist Party, which proposed policies such as nationalising the railroads and enforcing limitations on private property.
By the mid-1800s, British lenders to capital-hungry American railway companies deployed chartered accountants the first modern auditors to investigate every aspect of the railroads' businesses.
Today's villains are a larger and more global bunch than the handful of American robber barons Teddy Roosevelt denounced a century ago; and most of them are bankers and fund managers, rather than owners of trusts and railroads.
