Monday, March 8, 2010

Random Quote

This concerns an incident from 1869. I find it in the book "The Money Men," by H. W. Brands. Consult amazon dot com if you wish further information.

"Fisk and the bulls plotted how to squeeze the bears most painfully. The pool held commitments for delivery of more than $100 million, at a time when barely $15 million in gold and gold certificates circulated in New York outside the vaults of the subtreasury there. Someone suggested publishing the names of the shorts -- a group that included more than two hundred of the city's most prominent bankers, brokers, and merchants -- and the amounts they owed. The bad publicity alone would bring many to their knees and they would beg to settle at whatever terms the bulls required. But someone else suggested that such a course might constitute, or indicate, crimninal conspiracy. And there was no telling what the desperate bears might do by way of personal injury to particular bulls. The extortion scheme was shelved."

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