Thomas William Lamont Quotes
It seems that there has been some disturbed selling in the market
This is probably the greatest economic understatement of all time. In one of the great ironic touches of history, this is the gentleman that President Herbert Hoover turned to for advice and strategy of coping with the market crash and the Great Depression. Lamont turned out to be one of the worst strategists and economic planners in history. See {608636}. Nonetheless, note the illustration, Lamont made the cover of Time Magazine
Thomas William Lamont, 1870-1948, Wall Street Financier, U. S. Delegate, World Economic Conference, October 24, 1929, .
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
President Hoover asked a group of prominent citizens to make recommendations to him regarding rumors of instability in the stock market. 10 days later was Black Tuesday where the stock market crashed and started the great depression.
When the stock market crashed, the Board of Governors was entertaining the idea of putting a syndicate of banks together or back some financiers who would buy up the stock that people were trying to sell. There were those who wanted to sell but no buyers at any price. They concept of a market was being destroyed. Lamont correctly explained that the idea was not practical—it was too late for that. Lamont however had underestimated the market crash and made a feeble effort to assist President Hoover make his feeble effort to get the American economy going again.
The great scholars were as wrong as everyone else about the Great Depression
Major bankers were not only clueless in the Meltdown of 2008 and the Great Recession that followed, but they were equally hapless in the Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression thereafter.
Three days before the Great Depression Stock Market crash
This may have been the worst stock market advice ever sent to customers. The Great Depression would suppress the economy of more than a decade.
U. S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers called Rajan a “Luddite” for this view, but what Rajan observed and predicted was exactly what happened in the Meltdown of 2008 which led to the Great Recession. Rajan was one of the few economists to call this right. Several, invested their own money assuming a crash and made billions. Most, like Summers and the Federal Reserve Chairmen in retrospect admitted that they missed the signs and didn’t connect the dots. See {637168}, {637987}, and {620038}
The Stock Market went up slightly as a result of his efforts.
There was. President Hoover and his aids were not the only ones to underplay the stock market crash of 1929.
Arguably, for most of American History, most of the “smartest” people contributed to manufacturing, construction, research and development—activities that produce things that are wanted and/or needed. However, Wall Street began attracting and paying for some of the smartest people in the society, who when they engaged in finance—not only contributed less to manufacturing, but began to create highly complex financial instruments and procedures that few people could understand and with which regulators have difficulty understanding. These and the other schemes of financing have been major factors in the economic problems that have beset the economy including the meltdown of 2008 and the subsequent Great Rescission.
- Born: September 30, 1870
- Died: February 2, 1948
- Nationality:
- Profession: Banker
