Financial Context

In the 1970's Chuck Schwab founded what would become the third largest asset manager in the world. But like any business, when it started it relied on perseverance and luck.

Warren Buffet once said it is only when the tide goes out that you see whos been swimming naked. When the proverbial tide did go out on the economy and stock market in 1929 a mysterious man from Scandinavia definitely won the prize as the most naked swimmer.

Capitalism didn't invent the marketplace. At some point in history governments started to protect the rights of individuals participating in that marketplace and that was really the birth of capitalism. In this episode we explore the events that lead to Adam Smith's famous economic manifesto "The Wealth of Nations" and how the global economy went from being a static, zero-sum-game to an one base on growth.

Books referenced: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harai

Most people know Mark Twain as the prolific writer that he was. What most don't know is that he was also one of the worst investors whos life shows that making money and managing it are often two totally different things.

Charlie Merrill was one of the few people sounding the alarm about the stock market in 1929. After spending the Great Depression out of the securities business, he came back to Merrill Lynch in the 1940's with a whole new approach towards the industry: marketing directly to small investors.

In September of 1958 Bank of America mailed 60,000 fully functional credit cards to residents in Fresno, California. While the consumer credit card is ubiquitous today, at that time it was met with resistance and was anything by profitable for the bank at first.

Before there was the Federal Reserve there was JP Morgan. Born in 1837, he would become the United State's most powerful banker. From organizing the first billion dollar company to bailing out the federal government, his business management techniques were unprecedented and would be used by future robber barons a century later.

Books discussed: The House of Morgan by Ron Chernow

Before Bernie Madoff was the infamous scoundrel he is today, he was a market maker in over-the-counter stocks and was pivotal in the creation of the NASDAQ stock exchange. Today the NASDAQ is a proxy for technology stocks. In this podcast we explore why that is.

In the early 1920's a southern man attempted to take on Wall St by cornering the market for the stock of a company he created. What ensued was one pf the best lesson you can learn when gambling; the house always wins.