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
Rockefeller Predicted Standard Oil Would Someday Refine All Oil
“The Standard Oil Company will someday refine all of the oil and make all of the barrels.”
Rockefeller's Fortune Tripled to Nearly One Billion Dollars After Standard Oil's Breakup
“Rockefeller owned roughly a quarter of every new company, worth about three hundred million the day the court ruled. His fortune skyrocketed to nearly nine hundred million just two years later.”
Parrish: Rockefeller installed home telegraph to spend afternoons with family
“He had a telegraph wire run between his office and his house so he could spend three or four afternoons a week at home, Planting trees and playing with his kids, all the while he kept one of the largest companies on earth humming along down the road.”
Parrish: Rockefeller Jr. distributed over $1B after leaving Standard Oil in 1910
“In 1910, Junior made his decision and resigned from the board of Standard Oil and stepped away from the business side for good. His real life's work would be the other machine, the giving one. Over the next half century, he moved more than a billion dollars of…”
Parrish: Rockefeller's Standard Oil stock was worth $18M in 1879
“When a newspaper that year guessed his fortune, it said five million dollars, and he didn't correct them. He never did. But we know now that a standard oil stock alone at the time was worth about eighteen million.”
Standard Oil Secretly Acquired 22 of 26 Cleveland Refineries in Four Weeks
“In four weeks, between mid-February and mid-March, 1872, Standard Oil bought out 22 of Cleveland's 26 refineries.”
Parrish: Standard Oil refined 90% of US oil by late 1874
“Fully nine of 10 barrels of oil refined in the United States was now passing through Standard Oil.”
Parrish: The Mellons Controlled 10% of US Oil Exports in 1894
“By 1894, they controlled 10% of America's oil exports, prompting Andrew to confidently tell one associate, we have every facility possessed by the Standard Oil Company and receive and deliver oil under as favorable conditions in every way.”