The Rules of Investing Are Being Loosened. Could It Lead to the Next 1929?
A group of financiers is trying to convince the public to invest heavily in private equity and crypto — a risky gambit with some real 1920s vibes.
Andrew Ross Sorkin is the founder and editor at large of DealBook and the author of “1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History — and How It Shattered a Nation,” which is being published this week.
Back in the 1920s, Charles Mitchell — the swaggering head of National City Bank, the forerunner to Citigroup — had a ritual. He would take his bond salesmen to lunch at the Bankers Club, perched atop the Equitable Building at 120 Broadway, and point to the city below, stretched out in miniature. “There are six million people with incomes that aggregate thousands of millions of dollars,” he’d say. “They are just waiting for someone to come to tell them what to do with their savings. Take a good look, eat a good lunch and then go down and tell them.”
