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Where millionaires come from; a bit of history
Topic Started: Oct 10 2013, 04:43 AM (110 Views)
big al
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Bull-Carp
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Where Millionaires Come From

Everywhere, it seems, five-year anniversary examinations of the latest financial crisis are appearing.

I thought it might be interesting to re-visit a much earlier bubble that burst: to remind us that nothing much new under the sun has occurred in a very long time.

In the first part of the 18th Century, French investors piled money into the Mississippi Company, which was set-up to control the nation’s trade in North America and the West Indies.

Financial innovation drove wild growth.

Paper money was introduced and the idea of a joint-stock company was implemented.

By 1718, the narrow, dirty Rue Quincampoix had become Paris’ Wall Street.

Greed was rampant.

Buyers and sellers of all classes - duchesses and prostitutes, Parisians, provincials, foreigners - gathered in great numbers as the excitement mounted hourly.

Conventional wisdom held that the value of French holdings in the New World would always rise.

Since only 10% of a share of Mississippi Company had to be paid for, paper "millionaires" were being created each day, from bankers to waiters.

However, in the end, the enterprise did not prosper.

Much of the territory remained unconquered wilderness. Hopes of gold or other precious stones to be mined from the colonial soil proved illusory.

By the end of 1720, the King halted trading of Mississippi Company stocks.

Most of the new millionaires went bust.


Source

Big Al
Location: Western PA

"jesu, der simcha fun der man's farlangen."
-bachophile
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Copper
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Shortstop

I have seen a number of millionaires come from legitimate hard work and a little luck.
The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy
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