Being exhausted after a work day => reading vintage magazines and posting funny things from them

Mere months from a financial collapse caused by Florida land boom bursting

Forbes 1926: No investor ever lost a dollar in Miller bonds. "We reaffirm this opinion now. A bond which needs a guarantee to make it safe should not be offered."

New York Times 1929: BANKRUPT COMPANY TO PAY 100% ON DEBTS; G.L. Miller Bond and Mortgage Corp., Liquidated, Yields for Stockholders a Dividend of 62%.

Huh, it seems _this_ time investors didn't lose any dollars.

Forbes, June 1929. B.C. Forbes himself writes that "most business developments are favorable", but notices that "Wall Street continues to excite apprehension" and "recent events have proved that the warnings sounded here were not wholly unwarranted". The advice is cautious, but it completely fails to predict the Great Crash of October 1929.

The stock recovered by April 1930, only to start its decline that lasted many years. I wonder what Forbes advised in 1930...

Being exhausted after a work day => reading vintage magazines and posting funny things from them

@nina_kali_nina for a moment I thought that was some kind of data storage medium...

I need to log off.

@hp @nina_kali_nina hmm... I should devise a way to encode data into ice cubes

Forbes, June 1929. B.C. Forbes himself writes that "most business developments are favorable", but notices that "Wall Street continues to excite apprehension" and "recent events have proved that the warnings sounded here were not wholly unwarranted". The advice is cautious, but it completely fails to predict the Great Crash of October 1929.

The stock recovered by April 1930, only to start its decline that lasted many years. I wonder what Forbes advised in 1930...

@hp @nina_kali_nina hmm... I should devise a way to encode data into ice cubes

Forbes, April 1930, the beginning of the Great Depression. The topic of the issue is "Are U. S. Business Leaders Morons?" with the editorial written by Forbes himself.

Forbes says:
----
ARE our business leaders morons? A Are they incapable of meeting evils begotten by their own activities ?

Must they be regarded as irresponsible citizens, concerned only with money-making?

Have those playing a foremost part in revolutionizing modern industry no qualms about making such a confession as this:

“Business is business. The objective of industry is to make money. We are determined to make money. We concentrate solely on that aim. If we are satisfied that a billion-dollar merger will mean greater profits, we go ahead and engineer it."

...

The disturbing truth is that our economic revolution had released an abnormal number of workers even during our period of greatest prosperity.

Giving authority to a fool is like giving dynamite to a boy.

Betraying confidences doesn’t inspire confidence.

Forbes, April 1930, the beginning of the Great Depression. The topic of the issue is "Are U. S. Business Leaders Morons?" with the editorial written by Forbes himself.

Forbes says:
----
ARE our business leaders morons? A Are they incapable of meeting evils begotten by their own activities ?

Must they be regarded as irresponsible citizens, concerned only with money-making?

Have those playing a foremost part in revolutionizing modern industry no qualms about making such a confession as this:

“Business is business. The objective of industry is to make money. We are determined to make money. We concentrate solely on that aim. If we are satisfied that a billion-dollar merger will mean greater profits, we go ahead and engineer it."

...

The disturbing truth is that our economic revolution had released an abnormal number of workers even during our period of greatest prosperity.

Giving authority to a fool is like giving dynamite to a boy.

Betraying confidences doesn’t inspire confidence.

Aaand we're back to Forbes June 1929, riiiight before the Great Crash of 1929

Aaand we're back to Forbes June 1929, riiiight before the Great Crash of 1929

Aaand we're back to Forbes June 1929, riiiight before the Great Crash of 1929

Ayyyy, Forbes 1929, interview with Edison, saying solar is the future, and coal and oil suck:

"For one thing, Edison believes the time is coming when mankind will draw electrical energy on a large scale directly from the sun. Ever since the age of steam started the world to rolling at a heightened speed, so far as man is concerned, we have been drawing on the bank account of old sunlight. Coal is sun energy which was stored long ago in vegetation, petroleum is the same thing stored in low forms of animal life. But like all bank accounts they can be overdrawn."

"No Violent Collapse Likely", said Forbes about the Florida land boom in February 1926. A single hurricane killed the boom in September, and a severe financial crisis has followed, including many unsecured bond defaults, and banks collapsing.

Ayyyy, Forbes 1929, interview with Edison, saying solar is the future, and coal and oil suck:

"For one thing, Edison believes the time is coming when mankind will draw electrical energy on a large scale directly from the sun. Ever since the age of steam started the world to rolling at a heightened speed, so far as man is concerned, we have been drawing on the bank account of old sunlight. Coal is sun energy which was stored long ago in vegetation, petroleum is the same thing stored in low forms of animal life. But like all bank accounts they can be overdrawn."

Being exhausted after a work day => reading vintage magazines and posting funny things from them

Being exhausted after a work day => reading vintage magazines and posting funny things from them

@nina_kali_nina "World's greatest inventor"...

But he wasn't wrong. Shockingly correct, even!

@hp hindsight is a gift, but this interview from 1929 is surprisingly spot-on for many, many things. "Progress in batteries is difficult, but possible, just will take time"; "New forms of energy generation will be discovered"; "wind turbines and off-shore energy, even volcanic heat are going to be used"; "wireless energy transmission will be mostly a very niche thing"