Devil Take the Hindmost
"Many modern economists hold that speculation is a benign economic activity, that it is always rational in motivation and rarely adverse in its effects. The struggles of the United States after the Crash of 1929 and of Japan in the 1990s suggest otherwise. Some commentators, the billionaire financier George Soros among them, believe that growing speculative forces threaten a global financial crisis."--BOOK JACKET. "Devil Take the Hindmost is an original and challenging history of stock-market speculation from the seventeenth century to the present day. Through vivid accounts of the speculative activities (wise and unwise) of investors ranging from Daniel Defoe and Benjamin Disraeli to Ivan Boesky and Hillary Rodham Clinton, Edward Chancellor shows that speculation is not driven solely by the desire to make money - by fear and greed - but springs from a wider range of human compulsions and aspirations."--BOOK JACKET.
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12recommend
21mentions
16people
2008–2026years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The railroad bubble and the dotcom bubble feature prominently as disastrous misallocations of capital in one of my favorite books: "Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation."
Pitching AI as in the same vein is a very dark prognostication. As in, probably going to cause a wreck so bad we won't see breakeven in our lifetimes. The railroad bubble and the dotcom bust were generational economic calamities. For Gen X and Millenials, combine that with the 2008 GFC and it's been nonstop waves of speculation-driven disaster drowning us our whole lives.
- I read "Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation" last year, and the current AI bubble is like getting a front row seat to the next edition being written.
The really stupid bubbles end up getting themselves metastasized into the public retirement system, I'm just waiting for that to start any day now.
- If you want a great book on the history of financial speculation, Devil Take the Hindmost (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0452281806/) is a strong recommendation.
- Unlike computers, the economy isn't deterministic (among other differences.)
In order to understand the Japanese economy today, one really needs to read books about Japan's bubble in the 1980s. The interest rates Japan experiences today are the result of this. In a way, that makes certain aspects their economy very different from that of any other major Western or Asian country.
I would recommend reading "The Bubble Economy" -- which was published in 1992 and thus gives a more closer point of view. The author believed there was an imminent and abrupt price correction, it turn out to be worse and drawn out over decades.
Secondly, "Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation", published in 2000. The part about Japan's bubble was more concise than the "The Bubble Economy" and has some bits the first missed.
One of the best things about both of these books is they were written before the subsequent dot com bubble and housing bubble in the US.
Japan provides a good lesson on just how drawn out recovering from gross misallocations of capital during bubbles can be, even in very wealthy and developed countries. In Japan's case, it has had a multi-generational impact which continues today.
- > Nothing was learned about the 80s, or the 90s, or the 00s (or or or ad infinitum).
See the book Devil take the hindmost: a history of financial speculation by Edward Chancellor:
* https://bookshop.org/p/books/devil-take-the-hindmost-a-histo...
* https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/91360
Starts with 1600s Tulip mania and 1700s South Sea Bubble.
- The Rise of Financial Capitalism: International Capital Markets in the Age of Reason (Studies in Monetary and Financial History) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521457386/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_i-...
Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, Seventh Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017J5HBMS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_r.pw...
Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation https://www.amazon.com/dp/0452281806/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_.a...
A History of Interest Rates, Fourth Edition (Wiley Finance) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0471732834/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_-c...
A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World https://www.amazon.com/dp/0802144160/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_Hg...
