Wow, where do you guys come from? At my current gig, as a contract engineer I make two times more than the department director, who is 4 levels up in the hyerarhy.
Yes, it did happen before. From 1929 to 1933 the USSR transformed from an agrarian country to worlds second industrial power by having the equipment of thousands of factories (bought on the cheap, after the Great Depression started) transported from US and West Europe. Similarly the Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1938 became 3rd in industrial output.