The Week After The 1929 Stock Market Crash: A Brief History Lesson
The past predicts the future.
Nobody remembers Charles Mitchell, a banker who walked five miles from his five-story mansion to Wall Street every day—for the stamina. He had a staff of 16 servants. He wasn’t exactly a self-made man. How do I know?
When he was a child, while other kids were working at sawmills and textile factories, his dad bought him a pony as a test of his work ethic.
Hold this guy in your mind.
We’ll come back to him.
It would be nice to have a crystal ball. Absent of that, we have the next best thing. It’s called history. When I’m not sure what’s going to happen in the future, when I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing, I’ve found that history offers a clear set of predictions for human behavior and forthcoming events. We seem to be replaying all the greatest hits these days, from pandemics to fascist takeovers to economic crashes. Humans never learn from history, they replay it—not note by note, but always variations on a theme, and pretty predictable.
If you’re curious about what’s going to happen next with the economy, it’s nothing short of amazing how similar the 1920s look.
At a granular level, it’s stunning.
It’s even funny.