Wall Street 1929 Essay

Wall Street is the symbol of the U.S. financial system and contains the largest stock market in the world, the New York Stock Exchange. In March, 1792, twenty-four of New York City's leading merchants met secretly at Corre's Hotel to talk about how to bring together to the securities business and to take it from their competitors, the auctioneers. Two months later, on May 17, 1792, these merchants signed a document named the Buttonwood Agreement, named after their meeting place, a buttonwood tree. The agreement called for the signers to trade securities only among themselves, to set trading fees, and not to participate in other auctions of securities. These twenty-four men had founded what was to become the New York Stock Exchange.

The Wall Street con game, already working full motion, had convinced millions of Americans that the country was riding on an upward spiraling wave of financial glory. Both rich and poor put their money into stocks and bonds. The Wall Street myth, broadcast by the Insiders' newspapers and magazines, spotlighted stories of shopkeepers and workers making fortunes in the stock market

In 1929 stock prices were 400% higher than they had been in 1924. The Insiders had made their fortunes and could no longer sustain the con, so on October 23, 1929, the market fell 31 points. Stock prices fell an additional 49 points on October 28 and on the 29th the entire market fell apart. Some brokers and investors jumped out of their office windows. The 1929 crash hit the U.S. even harder than the one that was to come in 1987. The fallout from the '29 crash devastated the country, leading to a long-time economic collapse and depression that was to continue until the start of the Second World War in 1941. The Wall Street crash of 1987 - "Black Monday" - occurred on October 19th. The Dow Jones fell an astounding 508 points, largest one-day loss in the stock market's history. The Insiders running the con game landed on their feet and quickly misdirected the public's attention, laying the blame on computerized (program) trading. Though the cascade of sell orders from large institutions had clogged the system, leaving many individual investors stranded while prices fell, the '87 crash was created by the same Insider specialist group who control every facet of the stock market for their own