Daniel C. Oberloh wrote: And who's books are you going by?
What do you mean by ''microscopic fraction''? Its most probably because we were a young growing country with a solid manufacturing base. We had (for the most part) lower costs across the board. Share-holders did not expect or insist on the silly return % they think they deserve today.
Actually from the very beginning we were very dependent on foreign capital. Capital has always flowed across borders.
Major early capital intensive projects such as railroads and canals and plank roads had major foreign investors chasing the best returns they could globally get on their capital. These projects and the growth of the US (and it's economy) would have taken much longer without foreign capital. Major money came from the English & Dutch investors. While Americans worried in the 1980's about Japan buying up America they aren't even in the top 5, but the English are still #2 and the Dutch #3 in ownership of American assets
Daniel C. Oberloh wrote:Insurance costs were lower or nonexistent.
Not true at all. Insurance was hard to get but it was expensive. Ben Franklin created the first US insurance company. Some of my relatives were charter members of the Chicago Board of Trade. The only reason they survived financially the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 was that their grain holdings were insured by English Insurance Companies. Those with American Insurance were in bad shape as American Insurance Co were in large part undercapitalized and failed as a result of the huge fire claims.
Daniel C. Oberloh wrote:Labor cost less and was (sadly) often treated as disposable.
Yes there is truth to this. America for Europe in the late 18th, 19th and early 20th century was like Asia is to the USA today in terms of labor.
Daniel C. Oberloh wrote:We had import tariffs to protect our weaker home base industries and we exported to the rest of the world real, usable, durable, high value products that were considered the very best though maybe not the cheapest.
Actually one of the reasons the USA has done so well as been our relative low tariffs & barriors to trade. Oh the isolationists among us rise up from time to time and inact tarriffs etc. but in general they get scrapped. Sometimes unfair trade practices amongst other countries force us to become even better at making our products and thus more globally competitive. As far as being the very best - well throughout the 17th,18th,19th and early 20th century American products in many areas were considered inferior even by Americans. I can remember folks in even the '60's wanting to buy European goods because they were thought to be better. Think of how folks in the 1960's-1970's thought about Japanese guality - they called it "Jap Crap". Now folks believe it to be superior - even to the point of preferring say a Honda built in Japan to one built in America
Daniel C. Oberloh wrote:We loaned money to other countries.
That is only a post WWII phenomenom and we have been a net borrower for the last decade.
Daniel C. Oberloh wrote:We did not have the extent of BS involved to bring a product to market.
Well some of that can be attributed to the labor standards inacted to curb the abuses you speak of earlier.
Daniel C. Oberloh wrote:A project was expected to be built on time and on budget. If you lied or cheated local, state or fed. govt. (ala Halaburton sp?) you went to jail.
Oh gosh - graft & corruption go back to the very beginning of this country. Virtually every presidential campaign going back to Adams has railed about this. In many ways we have less of this because of sophisticated controls/oversight and the massive media that didn't exist 200 years ago. Nowadays we know about it because we have access to timely information distribution that didn't exist before. That doesn't mean it is more prevalent. I will agree we sadly still have way too much of it.
Daniel C. Oberloh wrote:Industry was local from the top down and had its roots firmly planted in the soil of this country.
Whoa - not true at all. Foreign ownership has been huge from the very beginning especially in major capital industries like railroads and steel. Also many of those companies were started by immigrants from Europe who like Mexicans today sent money back home to the old country as well as recruited workers from friends & family "back home"
Daniel C. Oberloh wrote:Also, government prior to 1955 was a hell of a lot smaller and less wastefull then it is today.
Well - the country was half the population size then so it stands to reason that government would be bigger. I agree that smaller government is preferrable. But it is a tradeoff. If you want better labor conditions, environmental protection, border protection, food protection etc then you get bigger more invasive government. It is a tradeoff. Folks bemoan big government but go nuts when the meat is infected with Mad Cow disease, or the water gets contaminated or their prescription contains bad medicine etc.
Daniel C. Oberloh wrote:You had a look at the size of our military in recent decades and seen how much of the budget is dedicated to it as oppose to everything else? that costs $$$$$ and lots of it!
Well you need to go back and take a look at how much of the budget was for the Revolution, War of 1812, Civil War, Spanish American War, WWI, WWII, Korean Conflict, the Cold War, and Vietnam. We still aren't even close but we are much higher than we were in the '90's. It is a shame we have to spend so much. After WWII we decided Japan could not have much of a military - so we provided for their defense. They spent less than 1/2 percent GDP on defense. One of the reasons they could be so competitive economicly was they didn't and don't spend what we do on defense or in our case being the World's Cop. The cost of wars/defense has always been a problem going back to biblical times and many a country has been undone by the cost and resultant taxation.
Capitalists first duty is to shareholders. It will flee (and always has) when the natives (and not the owners of said capital) decide they amongst themselves will redistribute it.
There will be less (not more) jobs and a lower resultant standard of living. Warren Buffet often is asked about corporate charity. He always informs folks why it is not the corporation's job to redistribute the owner/shareholders money it is the corporations job to make money for the owner/shareholder. It is the owner/shareolders right to then do fit what they please with their share of the efforts. He does believe the owners should help/donate to their communities but that is their right to do as they please. Hard to find fault with a guy who gave away 33 Billion last year.
Being a sol-proprietor myself, I am not burdened with the worry of corporate life. instead, I get to live on the edge with all that I possess from a life's struggle at stake where some fool trips in my parking lot and sues me for all I have. 
Yeah baybe! Life on the edge. 
...i'm not gonna say anything to that...