The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 8 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
The Canadian government told Eaton's it was too profitable
“They made so much money that the government told them that they were too profitable.”
Timothy Eaton built trust on consistency, Jack on retail theater
“Timothy Eaton built trust through consistency. Jack Eaton would build an empire through theater.”
Companies fail when successful founders pivot to serving their wealthy peers
“The family had fallen into a trap that still snares successful companies. They started serving customers like themselves, wealthy ones, forgetting that their wealth had come from serving everyone else.”
By 1920, Eaton's controlled 60% of Canada's department store sales
“Sales had exploded from twenty-two million in nineteen-oh-seven to one hundred and forty-one million in nineteen-twenty. The catalog alone brought in sixty million. They owned 60% of the entire country's department store sales.”
Eaton's shipped complete prefabricated kit houses with a money-back guarantee
“Need an entire house? Eaton's would ship you every single board and nail and window with instructions, and everything came with that revolutionary guarantee, goods satisfactory, or money refunded.”
Eaton's catalogs forced postal services to schedule extra delivery trains
“At times of year when the catalog was being released, there was coordination between Eaton's and the postal service to employ more delivery people and schedule more trains to fulfill the expected demand.”