Historical Thought for the Day
January 25, 2010
Thought for the day:
In a finite world, high growth rates must self-destruct. If the base from which the growth is taking place is tiny, this law may not operate for a time. But when the base balloons, the party ends: A high growth rate eventually forges its own anchor.
Warren Buffett, chairman's letter, Berkshire Hathaway annual report, 1989
This day in financial history:
1853: Basic financial disclosure becomes mandatory for all companies seeking to list their stock for trading on the New York Stock & Exchange Board.
1890: Journalist Nellie Bly (nee' Elizabeth Cochrane) jumps off a train in New York City exactly 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes, and 14 seconds after she boarded an east-bound oceanliner to prove that she could circle the globe faster than Phileas T. Fogg, the fictional hero of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days. Among the many modes of transportation Bly uses to circumnavigate the globe are burro, horse, sampan and rickshaw. Her daily dispatches, and the astonishing speed of her trip, enthrall newspaper readers and make the world seem small for the first time.
1997: Pyramid schemes promising returns of 8% per month collapse all at once throughout Albania. Furious mobs of bilked investors besiege the nation's deputy prime minister, Tritan Shehu, who cowers for safety in the locker room of a soccer stadium. By some estimates, $1 billion -- or 30% of the nation's gross domestic product -- was invested in these Ponzi schemes. Investors lose nearly everything -- and end up overturning the government, proving that a financial disaster can singlehandedly change the destiny of an entire nation.
Source: Jason Zweig
