It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You are conflating "have to work" with "not a wealthy elite", just like everyone else. This is a mistake everyone makes because we are trained to make it. It makes for "interesting history." Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he was handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You had to be able to read Latin as well, which Ben knew because he attended Boston Latin School, an education that most did not receive. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he could have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it, an opportunity that almost no one else had.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Most immigrants were indentures, most people were immigrants. This source says 20% were slaves (in 1750, I'm not sure about 1720ish, the time of Ben's apprenticeship). Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and had enough cash in his pocket to pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture (worth 3 to 7 years of wages depending on the indenture), basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. The "seventh sons" came because they were born rich, and wanted to stay that way. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a Church and community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in Europe because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part of the story of "the land of opportunity" is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise. The only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.

It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You are conflating "have to work" with "not a wealthy elite", just like everyone else. This is a mistake everyone makes because we are trained to make it. It makes for "interesting history." Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he was handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You had to be able to read Latin as well, which Ben knew because he attended Boston Latin School, an education that most did not receive. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he could have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it, an opportunity that almost no one else had.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Most immigrants were indentures, most people were immigrants. This source says 20% were slaves (in 1750, I'm not sure about 1720ish, the time of Ben's apprenticeship). Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and had enough cash in his pocket to pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture, basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. The "seventh sons" came because they were born rich, and wanted to stay that way. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a Church and community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in Europe because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part of the story of "the land of opportunity" is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise. The only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.

It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You are conflating "have to work" with "not a wealthy elite", just like everyone else. This is a mistake everyone makes because we are trained to make it. It makes for "interesting history." Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he wasn’t handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You had to be able to read Latin as well, which Ben knew because he attended Boston Latin School, an education that most did not receive. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he could have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it, an opportunity that almost no one else had.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Most immigrants were indentures, most people were immigrants. This source says 20% were slaves (in 1750, I'm not sure about 1720ish, the time of Ben's apprenticeship). Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and had enough cash in his pocket to pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture, basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. The "seventh sons" came because they were born rich, and wanted to stay that way. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a Church and community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in Europe because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part of the story of "the land of opportunity" is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise. The only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.

It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You are conflating "have to work" with "not a wealthy elite", just like everyone else. This is a mistake everyone makes because we are trained to make it. It makes for "interesting history." Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he wasn’t handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You had to be able to read Latin as well, which Ben knew because he attended Boston Latin School, an education that most did not receive. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he would have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it, an opportunity that almost no one else had.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Most immigrants were indentures, most people were immigrants. This source says 20% were slaves (in 1750, I'm not sure about 1720ish, the time of Ben's apprenticeship). Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and had enough cash in his pocket to pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture, basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. The "seventh sons" came because they were born rich, and wanted to stay that way. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a Church and community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in Europe because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part of the story of "the land of opportunity" is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise. The only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.

It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You are conflating "have to work" with "not a wealthy elite", just like everyone else. This is a mistake everyone makes because we are trained to make it. It makes for "interesting history." Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he wasn’t handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You had to be able to read Latin as well, which Ben knew because he attended Boston Latin School, an education that most did not receive. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he would have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it, an opportunity that almost no one else had.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Half to two thirds were indentures. Some of the rest were slaves. Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and had enough cash in his pocket to pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture, basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. The "seventh sons" came because they were born rich, and wanted to stay that way. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a Church and community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in Europe because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part of the story of "the land of opportunity" is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise. The only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.

It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You are conflating "have to work" with "not a wealthy elite", just like everyone else. This is a mistake everyone makes because we are trained to make it. It makes for "interesting history." Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he wasn’t handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You had to be able to read Latin as well, which Ben knew because he attended Boston Latin School, an education that most did not receive. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he would have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it, an opportunity that almost no one else had.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Half to two thirds were indentures. Some of the rest were slaves. Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and had enough cash in his pocket to pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture, basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. The "seventh sons" came because they were born rich, and wanted to stay that way. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in Europe because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part of the story of "the land of opportunity" is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise. The only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.

It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You conflating "have to work" with "not a wealthy elite", just like everyone else. This is a mistake everyone makes because we are trained to make it. It makes for "interesting history." Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he wasn’t handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You had to be able to read Latin as well, which Ben knew because he attended Boston Latin School, an education that most did not receive. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he would have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it, an opportunity that almost no one else had.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Half to two thirds were indentures. Some of the rest were slaves. Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and had enough cash in his pocket to pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture, basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. The "seventh sons" came because they were born rich, and wanted to stay that way. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in Europe because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part of the story of "the land of opportunity" is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise. The only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.

It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You conflating "have to work" with "not a wealthy elite", just like everyone else. Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he wasn’t handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You had to be able to read Latin as well, which Ben knew because he attended Boston Latin School, an education that most did not receive. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he would have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it, an opportunity that almost no one else had.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Half to two thirds were indentures. Some of the rest were slaves. Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and had enough cash in his pocket to pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture, basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. The "seventh sons" came because they were born rich, and wanted to stay that way. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in Europe because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part of the story of "the land of opportunity" is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise. The only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.

It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You are again, confusing two things, just like everyone else. Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he wasn’t handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You had to be able to read Latin as well, which Ben knew because he attended Boston Latin School, an education that most did not receive. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he would have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it, an opportunity that almost no one else had.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Half to two thirds were indentures. Some of the rest were slaves. Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and had enough cash in his pocket to pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture, basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. The "seventh sons" came because they were born rich, and wanted to stay that way. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in Europe because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part of the story of "the land of opportunity" is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise. The only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.

It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You are again, confusing two things, just like everyone else. Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he wasn’t handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You had to be able to read Latin as well, which Ben knew because he attended Boston Latin School, an education that most did not receive. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he would have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it, an opportunity that almost no one else had.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Half to two thirds were indentures. Some of the rest were slaves. Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and had enough cash in his pocket to pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture, basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. The "seventh sons" came because they were born rich, and wanted to stay that way. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in Europe because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part of the story of "the land of opportunity" is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise, that the only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.

It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You are again, confusing two things, just like everyone else. Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he wasn’t handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You had to be able to read Latin as well, which Ben knew because he attended Boston Latin School, an education that most did not receive. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he would have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it, an opportunity that almost no one else had.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Half to two thirds were indentures. Some of the rest were slaves. Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and had enough cash in his pocket to pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture, basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. The "seventh sons" came because they were born rich, and wanted to stay that way. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in England because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part of the story of "the land of opportunity" is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise, that the only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.

It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You are again, confusing two things, just like everyone else. Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he wasn’t handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You had to be able to read Latin as well, which Ben knew because he attended Boston Latin School, an education that most did not receive. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he would have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it, an opportunity that almost no one else had.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Half to two thirds were indentures. Some of the rest were slaves. Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and had enough cash in his pocket to pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture, basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. The "seventh sons" came because they were born rich, and wanted to stay that way. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in England because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise, that the only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.

It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You are again, confusing two things, just like everyone else. Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he wasn’t handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You had to be able to read Latin as well, which Ben knew because he attended Boston Latin School, an education that most did not receive. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he would have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it, an opportunity that almost no one else had.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Half to two thirds were indentures. Some of the rest were slaves. Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and had enough cash in his pocket to pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture, basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in England because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise, that the only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.

It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You are again, confusing two things, just like everyone else. Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he wasn’t handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You had to be able to read Latin as well, which Ben knew because he attended Boston Latin School, an education that most did not receive. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he would have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it, an opportunity that almost no one else had.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. He had opportunities most did not. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Half to two thirds were indentures. Some of the rest were slaves. Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and had enough cash in his pocket to pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture, basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in England because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise, that the only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.

It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You are again, confusing two things, just like everyone else. Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he wasn’t handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You had to be able to read Latin as well, which Ben knew because he attended Boston Latin School, an education that most did not receive. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he would have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. He had opportunities most did not. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Half to two thirds were indentures. Some of the rest were slaves. Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and had enough cash in his pocket to pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture, basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in England because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise, that the only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.

It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You are again, confusing two things, just like everyone else. Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he wasn’t handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he would have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. He had opportunities most did not. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Half to two thirds were indentures. Some of the rest were slaves. Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and had enough cash in his pocket to pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture, basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in England because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise, that the only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.

It specifically states that he was a guy that was elected to walk around church with a rod with a knob on the end which he would use to wake people up during sermons

There is nothing that I can find that says anything like this about Josiah Franklin. Here is what I found:

Josiah was also elected as a “tithingman,” a kind of Puritan policeman, tasked with counseling people and informing the authorities about “disorderly persons” including “stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, Sabbath breakers by night or by day, and such as absent themselves from the public worship of God on the Lord’s days,” or any practices “tending to debauchery, irreligion, profaneness, and atheism amongst us.”

Although such mandates might sound ominous to modern ears, Ben Franklin averred in his autobiography that in his duties Josiah won “a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice.” To the extent that there was a Puritan consensus in the Massachusetts of Ben’s youth, people assumed that virtue, religion, and morality were public concerns.

Josiah Franklin was literally the thought police. He “won a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice,” which means he had a position to pass out judgment, just like a constable. This means he was a community leader, as I said. Just because it was part of the Church, doesn’t mean it wasn’t also part of the town’s leadership structure, on the contrary, at the time it was very common to be both. The Church WAS the government at the time in New England.

Apprenticeships were not typically of the wealthy elite.

You are again, confusing two things, just like everyone else. Just because someone is working class (those who have to work to eat) doesn't mean they aren't wealthy or elite. John D. Rockefeller was born into an aristocratic family. His family had power and money going back forever, but he was STILL working class (in the beginning). He was working class because if he didn't work, he would have become a vagrant. His father had plenty of money, but he wouldn't have supported him.

The Aristocracy isn't just an Aristocracy, it is also a Meritocracy. That is what most people don't get. Their success is not guaranteed by their birth, on the contrary, they have to work for it. They just have opportunities the non-aristocrats don't have.

For example, Rockefeller’s father started him off with a loan of a thousand dollars. That was a huge sum of money at the time, but he couldn’t just go and retire with it. He had to invest it and work that investment, so he did. He also had received a secondary school education. Again, something the vast majority did not have. This provided him with more opportunities. Rockefeller is another person who was, according to history, a “self-made man.” This is true, to the extent that he didn’t inherent millions, and mansions, and an oil company already pre-made. It is false in that he wasn’t handed more opportunities than 99% of the rest of the planet. A similar situation exists for Ben Franklin, according to the evidence.

Getting a printing apprenticeship was not something that most people would have been given. You had to come from a solid family to get any apprenticeship at all.

For reference, see page 51 in this book on the history of the Prussian school system, which was the precursor to our school system.

since many of the pupils were illegitimate, their integration into society proved difficult at a time when legitimate parentage was an important prerequisite for guild apprenticeships.

You had to come from a “family” to get an apprenticeship. That doesn’t mean that all these families were wealthy, but they were at least middle tier. Those below that (we’ll call it the bottom 30%) had no opportunities at all. But some apprenticeships were harder to get than others because they required more education to even begin. To get a printing apprenticeship you had to be able to read very well, which means education. You also had to be connected. A printing apprenticeship is particularly difficult to get because "printing" meant "The Media." They were the newspapers of the time. They were the propaganda agencies of the time. My investigation always leads to the people who own the printing presses having all the signs of being Cabal, every single time. Deep dives into everyone who is a "printer" or "almanac maker", etc. has all the other ties into "the system." I'm not making that case here, because it is too large of an endeavor, but that is where my investigation always leads, back to those who run the printing presses. "Printing apprenticeship" was a HUGE deal. I have run into many other notables who began that way.

Universities and colleges were primarily for religious studies.

Meh, sorta. It was for law, religion, science, etc. But religion was a part of the Aristocracy. Religion ruled the world at the time, thus it was tied into all study, which was only afforded by the elite. Also, why do you mention that as if it is relevant to your case? Ben Franklin didn't get a tertiary education, and I never said he did, though his Wikipedia page says his father wanted him to become a minister, which means his father thought he would have, which means the opportunity must have been there for him, if he had chosen to take it.

By your assessment of the time period, every single business owner and every owner with land was the 1%.

That’s not exactly what I’ve said. I have explicitly stated I am making the case for him being more like top 10%. Perhaps higher than that, since his father was a community leader, and without his printing apprenticeship, he probably wouldn’t have become anything at all.

The top 10% have opportunities most do not have. Rockefeller was not, according to my research, a “1%’er.” He was however a 10%’er. Ben Franklin has all the same signs of opportunity. He had opportunities most did not. The stories of his “self-made”ness leave out a great deal of context to understand what life was like for everyone else.

Again, context is key. Most people who were in America were not business owners. On the contrary, most were Indentured servants:

Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the American Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.

Half to two thirds were indentures. Some of the rest were slaves. Most of the rest were wage laborers. How many does that leave for business owners? Not a lot. Most people were NOT business owners. Most people were NOT land owners. Most people were slaves, indentured servants, or those who had ended their indenture and were working for someone else who owned a business. Of those business owners, how many were also Church leaders? Probably several, but not all of them. Thus being both a business owner and a Church leader with community authority was something only a small percentage of the population had.

I can find no evidence that Josiah Franklin came over here on an indenture, which means he had the money to pay for his faire, something that only the top 30-50% could afford. I did find this on Ben’s grandmother:

Folger immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, England in 1635 with Rev. Hugh Peters and his family. She was an indentured servant, working for the family as a maid on the same ship as Peter Folger and his parents. Peter Folger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 pounds to pay off Mary's servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.

Ben’s grandfather, the one who almost certainly went to college, had enough to pay for his own faire, and pay off his soon to be wife’s indenture, basically buying her. Once again, indications of wealth.

the reasons people came here was to make opportunities that were not available in the old world. Overall the colonies were considered to be a backwater colony by Britain

These statements are true to an extent, but also missing a ton of important context. Most came to New England, at that time, like Josiah Franklin, to escape “religious persecution.” The religious upheaval that was occurring in England at the time was almost certainly a part of the Cabal’s plan, but I am not making that case at this time, nor am I going to make the case for Josiah Franklin having been Cabal, even though there are telltale signs. Josiah Franklin was specifically a Nonconformist. An illegal thing to be, thus he came to America where he became a community leader.

The super wealthy elite did not come to the colonies to live, it was unfashionable

This is not true. To get a charter to come to America you had to have money. If you came over on Indenture, it’s possible you never got out of it, or were a wage laborer for most of your life. If you did get out of it and made something of yourself (made a business for example), it was, according to my research, always because you had a family name. In addition, there were a TON of European Aristocrats that came here. For example, the Roosevelts came from the van Rosenvelt family, Lords of Holland, and owners of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many such families came to America and set up shop. The number of “seventh sons” of the Aristocrats that came here is numerous. THESE were the people who were coming to the land of opportunity on their own dime; the sons of rich men that wouldn’t have made it in England because they had too many older brothers. Yes, it was the “land of opportunity,” but not all of the opportunities were the same for everyone who came over. That part is a complete fabrication of reality.

As you read through the lives of the people who are the movers and shakers, you find a common thread. They always have parents who had wealth. Even when it says they were “self-made,” their parentage is always spot on, coming from community leaders (Ben’s father), highly educated people (his maternal grandfather), or well off land owners (both sides of his family), and having at least some level of formal education. The “self-made” people may not come from the 1%, but they almost invariably come from the top 10%. Which was my original premise, that the only way to say that these people pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, is to ignore the other 90% of the population who never had the bootstraps handed to them to begin with.