>From Lewis Corey, House of Morgan, NY, 1930:
'Railroad demoralisation, moreover, inflicted heavy losses on foreign investors, many of whom had purchased their securities through the Morgans. Foreign investors owned $251,000,000 of railroad bonds in default. The Bankers' Magazine estimated that between 1873 and 1879 European investors in American enterprises had lost $600,000,000 by bankruptcy or fraud, and declared that "this despoiling of European investors has been going on for more than a generation." ... In England the Statist said: "The consequences of rate wars on American railways are proving so disastrous to the holders of securities, and the prospects so gloomy, that some heroic remedy must be resorted to, else the whole investement will be lost."'
P146
If Britain did suffer big bankruptcies a veil has been drawn over that chapter of history. The tendency to speculation in the City of London was well established by the 1890s. House of Morgan began its career by raising capital in English markets for US ventures. George Peabody, partner to Junius Morgan is still commemorated here in the cheap housing provided by the Peabody Trust. In 1890, JP Morgan helped organise the rally in the City of London after Barings collapsed (nothing new under the sun) under the weight of its Latin American speculations.
In message <355455FC.F632F459 at altavista.net>, loobyloo at altavista.net
writes
>Its amazing, to an English person, that you Yankies consider NYC "safe".
Not to this English person, its not - I've often visited New York and been kind of amazed at New Yorkers' crime paranoia, in what seems to me a very safe and pleasant city. A couple of years ago, a group of American students, all from New York started at Manchester University, and were so victimised by burglars, that they left their digs and college to return to the safety of .. New York. -- Jim heartfield