nhưng vẫn an sinh xã hội là gặp khó khăn tài chính sâu. Các bạn trẻ phàn nàn, và công lý nhiều, về các loại thuế cao, họ phải trả, thuế là cần thiết để tài trợ cho những lợi ích cũ. Tuy nhiên, tuổi phàn nàn, và công lý nhiều, họ không thể duy trì tiêu chuẩn sống của họ đã dẫn đến hy vọng. | Who Protects the Consumer 195 separate railroads. The country was literally crisscrossed with railroads going to every remote hamlet and covering the nation from coast to coast. The miles of track in the UnitedStatesex-ceeded that in all the rest of the world combined. Competition was fierce. As a result freight and passenger rates were low supposedly the lowest in the world. Railroad men of course complained of cutthroat competition. I Every time the economy faltered in one of its periodic slumps railroads went bankrupt and were taken over by others or simply went out of business. When the economy revived another surge of railroad construction followed. The railroad men of the time tried to improve their position by joining together forming pools agreeing to fix rates at profitable levels and to divide the market. To their dismay the agreements were always breaking down. So long as the rest of the members of a pool kept up their rates any one member could benefit by cutting his rates and taking business away from the others. Of course he would not cut rates openly he would do so in devious ways to keep the other members of the pool in the dark as long as possible. Hence such practices arose as secret rebatestof avorcd shippers and discriminatory pricing between regions or commodities. Sooner or later the price cutting would become known and the pool would collapse. Competition was fiercest between distant populous points such as New York and Chicago. Shippers and passengers could choose among a number of alternate routes operatedby differentrail-roads and also among the canals that had earlier covered the land. On the other hand between shorter segments of any one of these routes for example between Ỉ larrisburg and Pittsburgh there might be only one railroad. That railroad would have something of a monopoly position subject only to competition from alternative means of transport such as canals or rivers. Naturally it would take full advantage of its monopoly .
