The Great Depression: A Diary - Benjamin Roth

[ACooke]

Almost through this one - truly fascinating.

 

Essentially as the title suggests it's a diary from ~1930 through ~1940 America from the viewpoint of a small business owner - a lawyer - who's keenly interested (and very intelligible) in the securities markets, business, economic policy and politics of the time. Very intriguing to hear him think through what might be best practises for the time and forecast what he believes is to come, all the whilst real estate is being repossessed but unable to be moved on from bank's balance sheets, causing banks to close their doors. The world is bouncing between deflationary and inflationary scares, war and poverty, and whiplashing securities markets. 

 

Fascinating as to how brutal the period was. A lot of stuff can be related to today but most is difficult to imagine happening *here* again (at least for me).

[Maverick47]

I picked this up awhile back and skimmed some of the entries.  I recently pulled it out again and will look it over again.  There are some interesting lessons to learn about leverage, having dry powder to take advantage of bargains in the market, and the false hopes that rose time and again during the long drawn out years of economic dislocation.  As Mark Twain is alleged to have said, “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme”.

[Suri22]

I have it on my shelf for a while should  read it ... bought it initially when it was recommended by morgan housel in his podcast.