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--- Sources ---

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40310720

https://ia800507.us.archive.org/4/items/scheidel-friesen-2009-roman-economy/Scheidel-Friesen_2009_Roman_Economy.pdf

https://www.academia.edu/5527979/Energy_Consumption_in_the_Roman_World

https://www.epi.org/blog/wage-inequality-fell-in-2023-amid-a-strong-labor-market-bucking-long-term-trends-but-top-1-wages-have-skyrocketed-182-since-1979-while-bottom-90-wages-have-seen-just-44-growth/

https://companiesmarketcap.com/usa/largest-companies-in-the-usa-by-market-cap/

https://www.cfainstitute.org/insights/articles/third-generation-wealth-curse-advisor-solutions

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/ninetyestate.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.guardianjet.com/jet-aircraft-online-tools/aircraft-brochure.cfm?m=Gulfstream-G650-29&utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/just-8-men-own-same-wealth-half-world

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-use-per-person-vs-gdp-per-capita

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-private-jet-flights-2024-donald-trump-2024-12

https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-average-gdp-per-capita-over-the-long-run

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US Steel was America’s first billion-dollar company in 1901. [1] With inflation, its formation was worth $51.4 billion! [2] That made it larger than the national debt and three times larger than the federal budget! But 100 years later, it’s not even on the Fortune 500 list. In fact, US Steel may not be American for much longer!


If Nippon Steel gets its way, the symbol of American engineering will become Japanese for just $14 billion. That’s a yard sale discount for a world leading steel producer who erected the San Francisco Bay Bridge, part of NASA’s Kennedy Space Station, and even the home of the United Nations in New York.

At one point it cornered 67% of the booming steel business. But flash forward to now and domestic consumption has been reduced to 8%. So how did the biggest player in America’s industrial revolution fall from grace?

Were they outpaced by new competitors? Were they outdated by tech? Or did the guys at the top simply fall asleep at the wheel? It starts at the dawn of the 20th century.
It had become clear that the industrial revolution had a lot more gas left in the tank.
So J.P. Morgan and Charles Schwab decided to take advantage of this opportunity by teaming up. [4]

But U.S. Steel’s climb to the top wasn’t going to be easy. In fact, trouble started right away…

It’s time to learn How History Works as we take apart “The 100 Year Decline of America’s Most Important Company”.

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SOURCES
https://web.archive.org/web/20181012210047/http://old.post-gazette.com/businessnews/20010225ussteel2.asp
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/032315/what-are-most-famous-monopolies.asp
https://www.ebhsoc.org/journal/index.php/ebhs/article/download/171/152/
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/18/business/gallery/us-steel-history/index.html#:~:text=US%20Steel%20was%20created%20in,its%20rival%20Federal%20Steel%20company.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/money-finance/how-andrew-carnegie-went-from-120-a-week-to-309-billion/317827
https://www.carnegie.org/interactives/foundersstory/#!/
https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1901?amount=480000000#:~:text=%24480%2C000%2C000%20in%201901%20is%20equivalent,cumulative%20price%20increase%20of%203%2C594.93%25.
https://www.americanheritage.com/deal-century
https://www.statista.com/statistics/225388/us-market-share-of-the-coca-cola-company-since-2004/
https://www.britannica.com/money/Bethlehem-Steel-Corporation
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Theodore-Roosevelt/The-Square-Deal
https://www.steelonthenet.com/kb/history-us-steel.html
https://www.britannica.com/money/United-States-Steel-Corporation
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/no-inventions-no-innovations-a-history
https://www.nationalmaterial.com/brief-history-american-steel-industry/
https://www.britannica.com/technology/basic-oxygen-furnace
http://www.sfu.ca/~kawasaki/Elbaum.pdf
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/18/business/us-steel-history-before-nippon-deal/index.html
https://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/feature-articles/bethlehem-steel-industrial-giant
https://www.nipponsteel.com/en/news/20240315_100.html

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Fascism is a word as misunderstood as it is misused.
Now these hyperbolic politicians could ALMOST be forgiven for not really knowing what they are talking about… because NOBODY really knows what they are talking about…
George Orwell once wrote that "'Fascism'’ has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies something not desirable."
Ian Kershaw who has dedicated his life to being one of the world's preeminent researchers on the social history of Germany in the 20th Century and even HE said that “defining Fascism is like trying to staple jelly to the wall”.
A hard and fast definition never existed in the first place, and even if it did, it has changed over time from an idealistic but ultimately flawed movement coming out of a continent going through some radical change, into what it is today which is just “A bad thing that we really shouldn’t do again”.
For most people that may be all they NEED to know, but it does raise some uncomfortable questions

- Sources -

Kershaw (2016). To Hell and Back: Europe 1914–1949

https://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc

https://archive.org/details/intelligentperso0000grif

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2004-03-01/anatomy-fascism

https://www.britannica.com/topic/fascism/Opposition-to-parliamentary-democracy

https://web.archive.org/web/20210814020613/https://voxeu.org/article/revisiting-rise-italian-fascism

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Revenge inspired short-selling, not a need for market efficiency and liquidity.

But some say short-selling doesn’t even do that. They say short-selling only ever leads to more volatility and crashes. [1]

They blame the 2010 Flash Crash on high-frequency trading and short sellers. [2]

They say the 2008 Financial Crisis was subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, and well… short sellers.

Is that really true? Was betting against the market in the late 00s the primary reason shareholders lost $8 trillion? [3]

Even if it did, many will defend it.

They’d say short-selling is the best way for the little guy to stick it to the fat cats.

Look at GameStop. They say average Joes pulled a fast one on billionaires by playing them at their own game.

Melvin Capital was one of the prominent hedge funds shorting GameStop. But after getting trolled by users on the Robinhood app, they lost around $6 billion before closing their doors for good. [4]

That’s bad news for the guys at the top. But for guys at the bottom. To them it’s justice being served.

And it’s exactly what Isaac Le Maire would have wanted.

He was the guy who inadvertently created short-selling when he was trying to take on one of the biggest companies on the planet.

But like many guys trying to gamble on the stock market, he should have quit while he was ahead.

In the end he lost everything: money, family, honour.

Or did he? Maybe he did defeat the Dutch East India Trading Company, and other ‘too big to fail’ corporations.

He just didn’t do it in his lifetime.

- Sources -

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100913/basics-short-selling.asp
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stock-market-crash-1929.asp
https://indypendent.org/2011/01/how-many-economists-does-it-take-to-see-an-8-trillion-housing-bubble/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/18/business/melvin-capital-gamestop-short.html
https://investoramnesia.com/2022/10/23/legends-of-market-history-isaac-le-maire/
https://www.sfu.ca/~poitras/ch2_lemaire.pdf
https://www.royal-house.nl/topics/william-of-orange-1533-1584/the-dutch-revolt
https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Antwerp
https://www.vocsite.nl/geschiedenis/voorcompagnieen
https://books.google.fr/books?id=nApXAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA681&q=%22Compagnie+du+Brabant%22
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cornelis-and-Frederik-de-Houtman
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/04/east-india-company-original-corporate-raiders
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Johan-van-Oldenbarnevelt
https://geheugen.delpher.nl/en/geheugen/pages/collectie/Nederland+en+Engeland:+de+band+tussen+twee+naties/De+VOC+en+de+EIC
https://www.worldhistory.org/Dutch_East_India_Company/
https://iisg.amsterdam/en/research/projects/hpw/calculate.php
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4o40Zv2rzc
https://books.google.nl/books?id=jklJAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA3&dq=Wijbrand+van+Warwijck&client=firefox-a&cd=5#v=onepage&q=Meebaal&f=false
https://www.capitalideasonline.com/wordpress/history-of-short-selling/?pdf=13324
https://academic.oup.com/columbia-scholarship-online/book/14207/chapter-abstract/168066150?redirectedFrom=fulltext
https://investoramnesia.com/2022/10/23/legends-of-market-history-isaac-le-maire/
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/henry-hudson-the-navigator/letter-from-president-jeannin-to-henry-iv-of-france-containing-an-account-of-his-negociation-with-henry-hudson-through-isaac-le-

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Everybody thinks they know the story of Lehman Brothers.
At its height it was the fourth largest firm of its kind in America, and managed hundreds of billions of dollars in assets across the world.
But less than a year after recording its best year ever… it was gone.
In the early morning hours of Monday September 15th 2008, the firm's chief legal council sent an email officially declaring bankruptcy in the Southern District of New York,
It was, and still is, the largest bankruptcy in history and it marked the climax of the GFC
In the hours that followed the markets had their worst day since the 911 attacks in 2001, and the panic spread across the entire global economy taking the world from an economic downturn into a full blown crisis.
Now you already knew this…
But something that’s normally missing from these oversimplified headlines is what actually happened in the months between Lehman Brothers recording record profits, and failing so spectacularly.

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for most of human history, national economies didn’t really grow year over year like we expect our economies to in the modern day.


A year worse than the one that came before wasn't unusual at all, because most human industries relied on rainfall and crop yields rather than consumer confidence and BOND yields.

That’s why we’re focusing on when human error and meddling were the direct causes of financial catastrophe, rather than any REAL change in how the world operated.

And the place to start is going to be the inflation crisis during the Roman Empire.

Whereas most crashes are felt in the moment, the financial woes of the Iron Age Titans dragged out over centuries.

The resulting hyperinflation is often cited as one of the biggest reasons for the Empire’s eventual collapse. Some historians even say it was the reason the classical civilization became ancient history.

Here’s what you need to know: Rome’s currency wasn’t backed by gold in some national vault.

Modern-day currencies get their strength from something like a federal reserve bank controlling money supply, and the government asking for you to pay your taxes in that currency.

Coins are just symbols of worth.

But in Ancient Rome, coins were proof of worth.

A Roman Denarius was minted with 4.5 grams of pure silver – that’s high-grade stuff back in the day.

A single coin was approximately a day’s wage for a city craftsman.

Unfortunately, a limited supply of silver and precious metals impeded circulation. It took decades to accrue enough coinage to become a standard medium of exchange.

To increase circulation, Roman officials diluted the silver purity.

New coins were less expensive to make but were agreed to be as valuable as higher purity originals.

In other words, Roman emperors figured out that if they needed more money, they could just mint more money.

Don't say we don't get any great ideas from the Romans

But but the economists watching know what the emperors were about to find out: inflation, failure to understand supply and demand, and lack of fiscal regulation had put the empire on a course for economic collapse.

Unfortunately, the rulers needed more time to figure that out.

In the interim, minting more money meant they could overspend on public works and pet projects. Any time the bank account looked shaky they just lowered the purity of their silver coins.

In 161 AD, when Marcus Aurelius was in power, Denarius purity was 75%.

100 years later, during the reign of Gallienus, the Denarius lowered from 5% to 0.5%.

Coins were eventually bronze with just a thin silver coating.

But in 301 AD, Emperor Diocletian had an idea to save the stalling economy.

His ‘Edict on Maximum Prices’ targeted inflation by imposing limits on sales of things like pork, shovels, and slaves.

But this backfired.

A black market sprang up, and market competition resulted in bloodshed.

So, he introduced a new coin: the argenteus.

One was equal to 50 denarii.

Yet it did little to curb inflation.

One decade later, an argenteus was worth up to 100 denarii. Historians believe Roman inflation reached up to 15,000% between 200 and 300 AD.

So, what did the Roman Empire do next? The same thing every government does when it goes broke. It raised taxes.

And what did the people do when the taxes were too high? The same thing people do when the taxes are too high: they bar

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-----
Sources:

1. https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/baby-boomers-1
2. https://www.historyskills.com/classroom/year-9/year-9-population-explosion-reading/
3. https://unherd.com/2020/01/why-tradwife-just-isnt-trad-enough/
4. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/11/03/millennials-only-children/
5. https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2023-04-06-study-reveals-new-insights-what-caused-1920-baby-boom
6. https://worksinprogress.co/issue/understanding-the-baby-boom/
7. https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/baby-boomers-1
8. https://www.theknot.com/content/thoughts-on-marriage-statistics
9. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1036066/homeownership-rate-by-age-usa/
10. https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/gi-bill
11. https://www.thebalancemoney.com/unemployment-rate-by-year-3305506
12. https://medium.com/substance/american-suburbia-is-a-failed-experiment-3649918e6d1e
13. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tupperware-work/
14. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w13707/revisions/w13707.rev0.pdf
15. https://www.businessinsider.com/baby-boom-2022-bofa-survey-2022-1?op=1
16. https://time.com/6237576/covid-19-pandemic-us-birth-rates/
17. https://www.npr.org/2021/05/06/994145464/the-pandemic-didnt-appear-to-spur-a-baby-boom-rather-a-bust
18. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51145251
19. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-population-drops-2nd-year-raises-long-term-growth-concerns-2024-01-17/
20. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/world-population-is-projected-to-grow-from-8-2-billion-to-a-peak-of-10-3-billion-in-2080s-un-says/ar-BB1pP9x0

The baby boomers are the largest and wealthiest generation to have ever existed.
They have shaped the world to their liking and have held onto global power for longer than they arguably should have, but that was only possible because they outnumbered everybody else.
But what caused the baby boom?
As our world struggles with aging and shrinking populations from Texas to Tokyo we could potentially use some of that booming right now.
The world has actually been in this position before, before the last baby boom fertility rates were dropping rapidly but then a few things turned it around.
The usual story you have probably heard is that the baby boom was the result of lot’s of soldiers coming back from the second world war and getting BUSY starting a family.
This…is only half true…
The easiest way to see the flaw in this logic is that after the FIRST world war, there were no extra babies to be found.
So, if the baby-boom didn’t start after World War II, when did it start?
The mid-1930s.
Can that be right?
Why would birth rates explode during an economic disaster as great as ‘The Great Depression’?
You’re probably thinking ‘the more money the lower the fertility rate’.
If so, then congratulate yourself on thinking like a 20th-century economist!
Unfortunately, that’s not the complete picture.
After almost a century of investigation, it turns out that thinking financial hardship motivates child birth is WRONG.
There’s a lot to being a boomer than you might think.
Turns out it’s more than being self-centered and technologically illiterate.
Records show the spike in birth rates was NOT because returning soldiers were eager to get busy. Instead, it shows that the rise in population

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Looking at maps throughout history can reveal some almost unbelievable patterns, like an empire that stayed extremely wealthy more than a thousand years after its collapse or an election that was decided before humans roamed the earth.
Have a look at this.
What do you think is the connection between cretaceous sediments from 66 million years ago and Alabama election results in 2020? [make sure you read the name cretaceous right you can look it up on YouTube]
Well, those sediments turned into highly fertile soil, highly fertile soil made for more productive farms, productive farms back in the 1800’s could afford more black slaves, which means this corridor has a larger black population, who in turn vote more favorably for democrats.
Having a good understanding of history means having a good understanding of everything that SHAPES history… economics, geography, culture, and yes (as disgusting as it is) sometimes even politics.

--- Sources ----

https://maps.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/shepherd/byzantine_empires_814.jpg

https://waterwayscouncil.org/media/in-the-news/article/2023/11/agriculture-shipping-industries-prepare-for-uncertainty-on-mississippi-river-in-the-future

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/carolingian-economy/BD0A5C21D952CA5CACEE83291991DAC7

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-europes-gdp-per-capita-by-country/

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----

SOURCES:

1. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-306378/Why-I-loathe-Sixties.html
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw0Rmt2S0uQ
3. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Harold-Wilson-Baron-Wilson-of-Rievaulx
4. https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/the-uk-economy-in-the-1960s/#:~:text=Considered%20by%20conventional%20macroeconomic%20metrics,the%20end%20of%20the%201950s.
5. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/platinum-jubilee/life-in-1960s-britain/
6. https://worksinprogress.co/issue/britains-forgotten-financial-crisis/
7. https://fet.uwe.ac.uk/conweb/house_ages/flypast/section13.htm
8. https://www.financialsoftware.co.uk/the-history-of-cgt/
9. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-Heath
10. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/20/newsid_2506000/2506897.stm#:~:text=BBC%20ON%20THIS%20DAY%20%7C%2020,UK%20unemployment%20tops%20one%20million&text=The%20number%20of%20people%20out,total%20was%20confirmed%20as%201%2C023%2C583. https://www.ruffer.co.uk/en/thinking/articles/market-views/2022-09-barber-boom
11. https://www.sunlife.co.uk/articles-guides/your-money/the-price-of-a-home-in-britain-then-and-now/#:~:text=1970s,house%20price%20was%20%C2%A34%2C378.
12. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/7/newsid_4054000/4054793.stm


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The British economy is in… a bit of a mess at the moment… to put it mildly.

Unemployment is rising, salaries are stagnating, houses are unaffordable, cities are going bankrupt, our public utilities are in dire disrepair, and people are covering this shortfall with debt…

But what if I told you that we have actually been here before, and that this slump was set in motion almost 60 years ago, with these… boring British townhouses…

These quintessentially British living quarters are the remnants of a forgotten financial crisis that actually saw house prices become EVEN MORE unaffordable than they are today…

Depending on who you ask, the 1960s was either an era of free love and radical thought, or an overrated blip of colour in a drab decade.

Either way, when it came to the economy, Britain was going through a dark period.

And it was all because of the housing situation.

Victorian architecture and quaint villages were torn up to be replaced by brutalist tower blocks and commercial centres.

Instead of white picket fences, suburbia sprawled with glaring brickwork and factory backdrops.

Architects believed they were paving the way for a utopian vision, where more people could live closer together, with more neighbours, for a stronger community.

In reality, the rapid growth of the housing market almost tanked the country’s finances completely.

And those tower blocks didn’t house any more people than the streets anyway. They needed more space to separate the community housing as per health and safety considerations/

And instead of improving the living conditions of the growing population, the rows of subpar new builds made things worse for everyone.