bear2034 said:
SFCityBear said:
DiabloWags said:
MinotStateBeav said:
If the Federal Reserve is a private business, why are the american taxpayers responsible for $3.1B renovation for the Federal Reserve remodel?
It was created by Congress in 1913.
My family remembers only too well. My immigrant grandfather came to San Francisco in the early 1900s. He worked odd jobs while studying accounting. He then got a job as bookkeeper for a sizeable coffee roasting company. He was the first to find out the company was going broke. He made the owners an offer, which they accepted. He took a train across country to Washington DC to protest the Income Tax Bill before Congress. He failed.
Then we had the Roaring 20s, the Great Depression, during which my grandfather's company did well. He won a federal contract to roast all the coffee for the US Navy (Pacific Fleet) and the Marine Corps. He expanded his roasting business to several plants, and was very successful through most of the Depression. Then FDR came along, and decided to build a coffee roasting plant for the Navy at Mare Island.
FDR offered to appoint my grandfather as Manager of the Navy Coffee Roasting Plant, but my grandfather was so angry, he turned down the job. A lifelong Democrat, he became a Republican on that day, and never looked back. He lost the Navy Contract, and the Marine Corps contract, shut down his factories and filed for bankruptcy.
Six months later, the Marine Corps came back to see my grandfather, and pleaded with him to start roasting their coffee again, claiming "This Navy coffee is just terrible." So my grandfather found a smaller building for rent, and he began roasting coffee for the Marine Corps again, which enabled him to continue supporting his family. His wife had passed away quite young, but he still had 3 young girls to raise by himself. He said "Three girls could probably bankrupt me, but if I had 3 sons, they would probably all be in jail."
He was Kevin J Turner, RIP.
Amazing story, thanks for sharing. I believe the Navy now get their coffee from J.M. Smucker Company, the parent company of Folders Coffee.
They say that in the Navy, the coffee's mighty fine.
It looks like muddy waters, and tastes like turpentine.
Oh Lord, I want to go home.
But Chief, won't let me go....
If you like how-my-grandfather-came-to-this-country-and-what-happened-next, here's another good one:
My grandfather was in his village that now looks like paradise but 110 years ago must've had zero opportunity. He heard there were people speaking his language that had come to America for the easy and fun job of mining coal. This was in Castle Gate, Utah, which is now a ghost town (you can look it up). So he comes out here, promising his future wife that she can join him after he makes his start. Upon arrival, he finds out that the reason they wanted him was that the regular workers were on strike and they needed scabs. With $2.68 to his name in a brand new country, what choice did he have, so he took the job, thus earning the enmity of everybody who spoke his language, But he made his start and sent for his honey and they started having kids, all the while looking for
anything else.
Then he got word that there were people from the old country who had steady work in Weirton, WV, doing the piece-of-cake jobs in a steel mill, so they packed up their bags. Six days a week, ten hours a day, but there was work, even thorough the Depression.
And good thing they left Castle Gate. A year afterwards, there was an explosion in the mine and all 175 workers were entombed, which explains its current status as a ghost town. (You can look that up, too.)
My dad got the hell out of there when WWII started, then afterwards learned a trade and moved to San Francisco, where he met my mom who was from Brooklyn, where there was hardly any work during the '30s.
They told me I had damned well better go to college, so I became the first college grad in my family. I told my kids, when they were little, that things had come full circle and they should dig for coal in our back yard, which they enjoyed one day, for a couple of hours.
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