Thursday, July 30, 2009

Embarassing Moments: Financial Ruin

I continue to be on "Wall Street Crash" watch while reading the New Yorker. By late 1929 I've seen a ton of advertisements which ENCOURAGE people to invest heavily in the market, but this one from September 14, 1929 -- just a month before the crash happened -- is truly, truly ominous.


I wonder: were financial experts at the time warning of a crash, and was this advertisement a reflection of that? It seems like an awfully big coincidence.

2 comments:

Colin said...

Wow, that's kind of haunting. What did editorial cartoonists know that nobody else did?!?

Gary said...

Actually, many people probably thought that the market bubble would burst.

The first American billionaire, John D. Rockefeller, was supposed to have said that when elevator operators (or maybe bus boys) were giving stock tips, it was time to get out of the market.

Watch Niall Ferguson's "The Ascent of Money" on PBS and you will see other examples of booms-go-bust. So 1929 was not unusual - just unusually large.

Recently, weren't investors duped by some financial houses that advised them to buy heavily, but had internal memos about avoiding or dumping certain stocks?

And everything old is new again...
...Murads and Caviarettes, please!