Starvin Larry

Finding the present somewhat tedious, SLL decided to rummage through the historical attic. We found all sorts of interesting facts, some of which seem contrary to received wisdom. Our advice is to trust the experts, no matter what the historical record purportedly says.

Thousands of books have been written about the Civil War; if there’s an authoritative history of the period that followed we couldn’t find it. Of course, that time, known as the Industrial Revolution, is a dark chapter and it’s understandable why nobody would want to write about it. After extensive rummaging we found a few facts that can only be dismissed as anomalous oddities. The trend growth rate of both the economy and incomes was the highest in U.S. history, with the 1870s and 1880s marking the apex. Somehow this was achieved while the federal, state and local governments’ combined spending was less than 5 percent of…