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The Crash Where am I?
Oh. Here I am. That was one nasty crash. I’ll probably
have bruises to show for it for several weeks.
But they’re nothing compared to the bruises incurred from last year’s crash…
Let me go back to the beginning.
Okay, a little after that. It was 1928… and the day of my twelfth birthday.
My parents wanted to give me a little capital to start my own business.
So they started me out with ten dollars… and I was able to set up shop at the end of
the driveway.
For a while there, my name was synonymous with lemonade.
In a year’s time, I had saved one hundred dollars. A small fortune. Don’t forget that
things cost way less in my day.
Of course, my parents wanted me to invest my earnings.
If there was anything that the boom of the 1920’s had taught us, it was that stocks
were a “sure thing.”
Dad hooked me up with his broker, who allowed me to borrow ten times as much money, as equity…
…and to buy stocks with it at some pretty fantabulous rates.
So I borrowed one thousand dollars and bought eleven hundred dollars’ worth of stock in
an oil company. At one dollar a share, I was able to buy eleven
hundred shares.
Because of all the consumer optimism at the time, everyone was pouring money into the
stock market, and my oil company was raking it in.
Before long, my stock had risen to three dollars a share, and I was laughing all the way to
the bank. Taking into consideration my original investment,
I was suddenly worth two grand, give or take.
And I could have had all that deniro… if I had sold right then.
Oh, if only someone had visited me from the distant future… to steer me in the right
direction! Okay, so my parents suggested I sell, but
they’re my parents.
They also think I should eat all my Brussels sprouts, so… I have to take everything they
say with a grain of salt. Instead, I listened to this Wall Street analyst
who said my stock was going to ten dollars a share and I’d be crazy to sell.
I didn’t want to be called crazy…
So I didn’t. The stock tanked… as did the rest of the
market.
By the time my oil company had dropped back down to its original price of one dollar a
share, I was broke.
The taxes and interest had cleaned me out… I didn’t even have my original hundred dollars
anymore. And it happened fast.
At the end of the day, my stock had dropped even further, and was now at seventy cents
a share.
I was bankrupt, and the brokerage was left having to pay what I couldn’t. They were
suddenly several hundred in the hole. Sadly, my story isn’t a unique one.
Last year’s crash wiped out nearly everyone who had put a good chunk of their savings
into the stock market. But at least I’m a kid, and I’ve got my
whole life to learn from past mistakes and hopefully carve out a good life for myself.
The same can’t be said for a lot of grown-ups. When the bottom dropped out of the economy,
it hurt everyone pretty badly.
Demand for goods plummeted because those who had lost a bundle in the stock market suddenly
had holes in their pockets.
And good luck financing new investments through the sale of stock. Nobody was buying stocks
any longer.
They weren’t falling for that again. But in the meantime, millions had lost their
jobs…
… their homes…
…and had to start standing in breadlines and visiting soup kitchens just to keep some
meat on their quickly deteriorating bones. Some even gave up all hope and jumped out
of a twenty-story window. Believe it or not, those guys were in even
worse shape than my bike.
Speaking of which, I should probably get this guy down to the scrap metal yard so I can
sell it for parts.
Maybe I can scrounge together enough coins to buy a few slices of bread for dinner.
But, you know… enjoy your Chinese take-out, or whatever you’re having tonight.