“ambitious, temperamental, vain, thin-skinned, petulant, awkward, demanding, stubborn, annoying, hasty, passionate. This Washington has not yet learned to cultivate his image or contain his emotions. Here, instead, is a raw young man struggling toward maturity and in love with a close friend’s wife. This is the Washington of emotional neediness, personal ambition, and mistakes – many mistakes.”

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“David, like 85 percent of middle-class Americans polled in a 2012 survey, said it was more difficult to maintain living standards than it had been ten years earlier. A little more than six in ten middle-class families reported having had to cut back household spending. Today, it is both harder to get into the middle class and harder to stay there than at any time since World War II.” (p 93)
 
 
“Social Security provides widespread but not universal coverage; as of 2010, 14.4 percent of persons aged sixty-five or older were not receiving income from Social Security as they lacked sufficient paid and reported work histories to gain coverage.” (p 115)
 
 
“Whereas 62 percent of workers enrolled in a single retirement plan in 1983 had a defined benefit pension, by 2013, 71 percent of those enrolled in a single plan had defined contribution plans like 401 (k)s.” (p 117)
 
 
“Medicare pays 73 and 80 percent more, respectively, than Medicaid and the VA, which have more leeway in leveraging lower drug costs for larger purchases. This leads Medicare to pay approximately $16 billion more a year than if it could negotiate the same prices as Medicaid and the VA.” (p 152)

“According to the Economic Policy Institute, since 1978, CEO pay (inflation adjusted) has risen tenfold. “Over the same period, a typical worker’s wages grew from $48,000 in 1978 to just $53,200 in 2014, and increase of less than half of 1 percent per year.” (p 12)
 
​
 
“Between 1950 and 1970, total CEO bonuses ranged between 15 percent and 20 percent of compensation. Today, those proportions are reversed. Salary is typically a small portion of CEO compensation, normally 3 to 10 percent at larger companies. So-called performance bonuses account for more than 80 percent.” (p 87)

“The payday lending industry has grown from “$10 billion in 2001 to nearly $30 billion in 2012.” (p xv)
 


“In 2014, Americans paid nearly $32 billion in overdraft fees, and $6 billion of it went to the three biggest banks (Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo).” (p 31)
 


“Since the 1970s, the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio has increased from 30:1 in 1978 to 296:1 in 2013. In the same time period, CEO compensation has increased by 937 percent while worker compensation has increased by just over 10 percent.” (p 52)
 

​
“In 1983, only 43 percent of US households had a MasterCard, Visa, or other general-purpose credit card. By 1995 that number had risen to 66 percent. In 2005, credit card companies sent nearly six billion solicitations to consumers, or twenty solicitations for every man, woman and child in the United States.” (p 70)

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“Of course, while the president was pursuing his legislative agenda, anti-Lincoln Republican radicals and opponents in the Democratic Party fought him at every turn. But being the pragmatic politician he was, Lincoln expected it, handled it, and didn’t let it bother him. Essentially, he unwaveringly maintained his agenda, cooperated with those who supported him, and simply ‘plowed around’ those who did not.” (p 152)

“Recall that it was more than a decade from the time Abraham Lincoln started fighting slavery in 1854 to the time he actually ended it (with the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865).
 
If Lincoln were here today, he would advise our leaders to set out a long-range plan to achieve their major goals; focus on achieving each individual step along the way; wait for the timing to be right – and then seize the moment when it is.” (p 190-1)

“Many people these days think of Machiavelli as an amoral political operator, and his name is synonymous with political intrigue and backstabbing…But in an important sense, he was also part of a long political tradition on how to create political stability in a divided society. He was deeply concerned with the problem of economic inequality, and he supported constitutional structures to prevent inequality from spilling over into conflict.” (p 49)

“America of 1774 was surprisingly egalitarian. Considering all households, including slaves, the top 1 percent in America had 8.5 percent of total income. When only free households are taken into account, the number drops to 7.6 percent. In 2012, for comparison, the top 1 percent of Americans took 19.3 percent of total income. In fact, you have to go back to 1973 to find a recent number – 7.7 percent – even in the range of free 1774 America.” (p 62)

“In fact, 56 percent of all disclosed spending on lobbying in 2012 came from just 3,587 corporations. If we add trade associations and business-wide associations, the number jumps to 78 percent of all lobbying money. Between 1998 and 2010, corporations increased spending on lobbyists by 85 percent (to $2.09 billion) while trade associations increased spending by 53 percent (to $590 million).” (p 251)
 
 
“Between 1970 and 2000, the number of think tanks jumped from seventy to more than three hundred.” (p 252)
 
 
“According to data from the Tax Policy Center, only about 3,800 estates in the entire country – which amounts to 0.14 percent or one in every seven hundred people who die – pay any estate tax at all. In 1976, by comparison, 139,115 estates paid the tax (which was 7.65 percent of deaths).” (p 256)
 
 
“During the 2011-12 cycle of state supreme court elections, political parties and interest groups spent $24.1 million on advertising supporting or attacking judges – more than twice the amount spend in the 2010 cycle and almost ten times more than they spent in 2001-02.” (p 270)
 
 
“The defining feature of the 2016 election was the strength of anti-establishment candidates who channeled popular discontent with elites and with the current functioning of American politics.” (p 271)
 
 
“On Election Day, a Reuters poll found that 72 percent of voters believed ‘the American economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful.’” (p 272)

“The Money Trick lets current members of Congress get the credit for gratifying the public’s demand for tax cuts, benefit increases, and other spending increases, while shifting the blame for the inevitable tax increases and benefit cuts to their successors in office when the long-term fiscal consequences of these actions require painful adjustments. As a result, Congress has set a course that, unless changed soon, will require draconian tax increases and spending cuts across the entire population.
 
…
 
The Federal Mandate Trick lets members of Congress get the credit for the benefits they require the state and local governments to deliver, while shifting the blame for the burdens necessary to deliver those benefits to state and local officials. As a result, Congress mandates benefits without considering whether they are worth the burdens they place on us.” (p 3-4)

“The goal is to look ‘fuckable,’ Miranda said.”
 
“You don’t walk into a party without a couple shots of vodka.”
 
“The first step in hooking up is to get shitfaced.”
 
“Destiny emphasized how alcohol made her feel carefree three times in as many sentences.”
 
“Men who painted the word ‘pussy’ on a known non-drinker’s car.”
 
“Sure, it’s not a social tragedy to hook up with an average-looking guy. But hooking up with someone attractive is a social asset for sure. It raises your standing in the hierarchy of potential partners. It makes you more attractive.”
 
“In our room, sex is a commodity, which, like gold, increases a man’s social status, especially if he ‘scores’ or ‘pounds’ an especially blonde girl. Blonde is hot.”
 
“Frat stars and athletes – those are the only ones that matter. I mean, honestly.”
 
‘“I know I’m going to be really drunk,” said a female student to a friend, “so you need to stop me if you see me hooking up with someone who isn’t cute.”’
 
“Perhaps that’s part of what makes hookup cultures so gripping for some students: there’s always the possibility that they’ll hook up with someone above their social station and always the risk of hooking up with someone below it. Social mobility is real, and that’s both exciting and scary.”

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​Conclusion

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​Jim Bridger: Mountain Man

​Jedediah Smith: No Ordinary Mountain Man

​John Colter: Explorer, Mountain Man, and Trapper

​Hugh Glass

​Bill Sublette: Mountain Man

​Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson

​Trappers of the Far West: Sixteen Biographical Sketches

​The American Fur Trade of the Far West, Vol. 1

​The Awakening Of The Desert: An Adventure-Filled Memoir Of The Old West

​Indian History and Indian Wars of Montana

​Conclusion