Stocks ending in 1930 were dropped by one-third. A year later, the great fade away covered half of the country’s financial assets.  The Great Depression started in 1931, my year of birth. By then, the market tracked 20% below its low point of 1929. Then, by 1932 we  finally bottomed some 80% below the peak.  Nobody cared or jumped out windows. Born in August of 1931, I had as yet no reference points for good markets, bad ones or indifferent settings.  During the thirties, my

Way back, I bought an apartment in Trump Towers. It was early on. The Sosnoffs were sole occupants in the building. You never want to be the sole, early occupant in a new building. It takes time for the heated water to build up so you can take a hot bath. In short, a lot can go wrong that takes time to fix.  I was going for control of Caesars World,  New Jersey which turned out to be a costly mistake. Trump, later, got financing from Merrill Lynch to build a humongous casino

I know how to track this rock song which dates itself, but say at least 60 years. I remember guitars and banjos strumming away as the lyrics belted out pure optimism. It 's like the sun rising in the sky like a red rubber, bouncing ball. Sundays, visiting Washington Square Park, you'd hear a dozen groups reaching for a place in the sun with our rapt attention loyal for at least 10 minutes. The title of this piece, is a celebration of singing about your belief in yourself an

When I picked out “1929”,  Andrew Ross Sorkin’s long tome, I hoped to understand how a coterie of bankers,  brokers methodically raped our country’s financial system. These were mainly waspy, middle-aged operators and heads of toney brokerage houses. Before investing in bank stocks, catch some flavor of what happened to our financial system in 1929 and who bears the blame. Was it the man in the street overreaching with his trades or was something more systemic percolating?  L