Page 11 - Robert Goddard News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

We like to think of our economy as one that runs on competition. For instance, we can choose the brand ofasoline we buy. One station sets its prices too high, thene can simply go across the stet one station for a lower price. O high, if enough drivers pass the highprice station by, sooner or later it goes out of business. Of course, if in order to attract business a station sets its prices too low and cant cover costs, sooner or later itll go out of business, too. But what happens to prices if one company, or one person, controls all the gas stations . That was what the country faced in 1890. The company was standard oil the man was john d. Rockefeller. This was the infant oil industry jafter the civil war. Drilling equipment was hand and footoperated in those days and available cheap. Anybodcould join the o rh, and anybody di with thousands of smallscale prospectors, drillers, and finers competg, the supply of oil was plentiful. Prices were low, and so were profits. Rockefeller had be

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