Selling Seven
Clare Briggs
Clare Briggs is a famous cartoonist who lived from 1875 to 1930. Poems by Wilbur Nesbitt.
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“[Copyright} 1928 NY Tribune Company”
ooh, this is like watching those year 2000 superbowl ads full of companies that wouldn’t exist the next year.Report
STILL HERE, BABY
Anyway, anybody who promises 7% is blowing smoke up your hind end.Report
To be fair, 7% yield on preferred stock is probably not obviously scamtastic in any interest rate environment prior to 2008. Investment grade corporate paper (which, true, is not quite the same thing) routinely had yields around that prior to current world of constantly testing the zero lower bound.
(ref: the excel spreadsheet on this page https://home.treasury.gov/data/treasury-coupon-issues-and-corporate-bond-yield-curve/corporate-bond-yield-curve)
eta – and page 6 of this pdf shows a spike in short term commercial paper in 1928 (possibly due to a Fed interest rate hike that year), before everything came crashing down hard.
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/frbslreview/pages/1965-1969/62472_1965-1969.pdfReport
Oh, I’m sure that there are 7% investments out there… behind locked doors, offered to people who have multiple residences who struggle to figure out which one counts as “primary”.
Offered from a guy walking around?Report
Oh, yeah, nonetheless, this is definitely offering exciting opportunities to get in on the ground floor of the Glengarry Highlands and Glenn Ross Farms real estate developments.Report
“Promises” does all the heavy lifting here. There are plenty of investments open to ordinary investors that reliably, over the medium- to long-term of 7% or more. The annualized real return on the S&P 500 over 50 years is 6.8%, 30 years 8.3%, and 10 years 11.96%. Any ordinary Joe or Jane can buy an index fund and get comparable returns. Of course, no one can “promise” such returns on a year-in, year-out basis. That was what should have given away Bernie Madoff. Lots of good money managers can average 10% a year. But that will look like 10.7% in year one, 6.2% in year 2, 23.4% in year 3, and a 2.5% loss in year 4, and so on. Steady, safe, non-volatile 10% returns year-in and year-out — maybe 11% one year and 9.2% in another, but consistently in a narrow band around 10% — cannot be done.Report
Of course, no one can “promise” such returns on a year-in, year-out basis. That was what should have given away Bernie Madoff.
I’m pleased we agree!Report
Amazing, agreement on an answer without agreement on what the question is.Report
For me, the question involved the wisdom of not taking the word of a door to door stock salesman in 1928 promising 7% returns on stock in a glove company in town.
Granted, I have the benefit of a lot of hindsight.Report
So all that stuff about: Oh, I’m sure that there are 7% investments out there… behind locked doors, offered to people who have multiple residences who struggle to figure out which one counts as “primary” was throat-clearing? Well, you would know, or at least you’re the one in a position to know, so I guess we have to take your word for it.Report
Bernie Madoff, I understand, was offering them to people in his circle.Report
I wonder how this cartoon felt a year or so later.Report
One of the sad but notable things that about Clare Briggs, that occurs to me frequently in this series, is that he passed away in January 1930. So all these scenes of the 1920s are frozen in time, almost like Pompeii.
And even in January 1930, things were not quite that bad economy-wise, and people generally still didn’t grasp how bad they would get.Report
That is utterly fascinating and makes these cartoons even more intriguing.Report