Celebrating another year of Wharton domination atop the U.S. News & World Report "Top Undergraduate Business Schools in Southeastern Pennsylvania" rankings, we would like to take a moment to recognize some of the great moments in Western business history. Let's stroll down memory lane:
Late 17th Century
British Imperialism
European nations mercilessly slaughter indigenous people in the Americas and replace them with their own descendants, opening up a Western market for tea, biscuits and cholera.
Mid-19th Century
Industrialization: The Title Matchup
Karl Marx and John Locke (even though he died 200 years before) get in a brawl in a Liverpool pub after Locke tells Marx he's going to redistribute his ass outside. Retorted Marx, "You're going to be bourgeois-seeing stars in a minute." Marx didn't see the invisible hand heading toward his left eye and was hospitalized for a week.
1877
Women and Children Second
The women's rights movement gets a premature boost when American industrial barons realize they can hire untrained women and children for 60 cents on the dollar. Twenty years later, when asked about the problems of the Gilded Age, President Howard Taft replied, "I'm a fatass."
In other news, the USDA reports fingernail content in sausage increases 85 percent over the decade.
Late 1877
Smack that Bitch Up
Women diversify their function in the workplace. The invention of the typewriter causes factory foremen to realize that women's talents reach much farther than sewing and folding. In December of this year, the Oxford English Dictionary updates definition of "whore" to include secretary.
1907
Monopoly
By purchasing Baltic Avenue, corporate baron John D. Rockefeller manages to score a monopoly on the purple properties and the oil industry. He also collected on Free Parking. After a Supreme Court ruling, he went directly to jail, without passing Go or collecting $200, but he didn't care because he was the thimble.
That bitch Carnegie was the wheelbarrow. Loser.
1933
New Deal Me Another Hand
Four years after the stock-market crash, FDR initiates a program of quasi-socialist, semi-unconstitutional programs that alleviate economic stagnation. With new-found money, industrialists form the Republican Party and spend the next 17 years amassing enough wealth to buy the Hoover Dam, the Lincoln Tunnel and the Executive Branch.
1955
Suck on This
The Virginia economy suffers an enormous blow with rapid decrease in tobacco sales. Tobacco companies respond by adding addictive agents; said tobacco magnate Mr. P. Morris, "Hell, they're not going to hurt anyone, and besides, no one will ever know."
He, of course, died of lung cancer, and the cause is still undetermined; RJR Nabisco blames bad produce and claims the two daily packs of Marlboro Reds added 10 years to his life and made him look real sexy. Eat Wheat Thins.
1979
Toxic Waste Not, Want Not
Industrialists seeking to cut energy costs by relying on nuclear power begin to dispose of toxic waste in unlikely locations like elementary schools, public libraries and upstate New York. As a consequence, ABC cancels its Love Boat spinoff, Love Canal: The Nuclear Family. It was replaced mid-season by the equally radioactive Barbara Walters: Disco Queen Forever.
1991
Tijuana Gives the U.S. More than Diarrhea
Cheap Mexican labor abandons picking oranges and making worms for bottles of Cuervo as Nike moves factories out of the U.S. As a result, for the first time in history, blue-collar American workers begin to take jobs from more skilled migrant workers, and 1.7 million people return to Mexico, causing the peso to crash and the price of Air Jordans to skyrocket. Says Michael Jordan, "Mis cajones les gusta mi Hanes."
2001
Porn Becomes Legit
Following the collapse of the dot-com industry, JP Morgan sacrifices its blue chip portfolio to concentrate on the few profitable tech sites. When asked via e-mail about the number of College graduates heading into the porn industry, Penn Career Services' Julie Schutzman replied, "I wuv you schnuckms." Traditional recruiters, including Paine Webber and Morgan Stanley, are eclipsed by more financially solvent firms, such as Motion Fucktures, Inc., and bastemyface.com.
