Ambrose Bierce Quotes
Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat.
Bierce, Ambrose. The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. VIII: Epigrams. The Neale Publishing Company, 1911.
Here is another example of “the good old days” phenomenon. Similar complaints are made in most generations about most vices.
Kott was indicted for accepting a bribe and Allen agreed to testify for the prosecution in exchange for lighter treatment. However, this illustrated the biggest Alaskan political scandal which involved many of the Republican state legislators, the long serving Alaskan U. S. Senator Ted Stevens and Stevens’ son were also the legislative leaders bribed to kill the tax bill. See {620070}.
There were few if any consumer protection laws in those days and many wealthy aristocrats made their money by taking advantage of the poor. They were the landowners, bankers, financiers and often the industrialists. Shaw was a sarcastic social critic and this is a typical line he gave his upper class characters. Today, we have more controls on business and finance, and many wealthy business people have gotten that way by providing great value to the consumers and being honest. However, we still have large numbers of wealthy members of society who do make their money from the poor and middle class by unethical and often illegal means. In the aftermath of the Meltdown of 2008. hundreds of thousands of the homes of the working poor and middle class were foreclosed by the major banks forging the legal documentation for the foreclusures. Millions of consumer contracts are issued that even a PhD cannot understand the terms of without special legal and financial training. There is even a legal definition of a salesperson lying to make a sale which is so commonplace that our law excuses it and calls it "puffing". However, there has been over time, improvement over Shaw's era.
Henry Wheeler Shaw 1818-1885
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and Civil War veteran. His book The Devil's Dictionary was named as one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration. His story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" has been described as "one of the most famous and frequently anthologized stories in American literature"; and his book Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (also published as In the Midst of Life) was named by the Grolier Club as one of the 100 most influential American books printed before 1900.
