Devil Take the Hindmost — A History of Financial Speculation — Book Notes

Where is the line between excessive speculation and legitimate trade? Evil should be held in check, but no one quite knows how to do it — and if stopping evil also chokes off risk-taking, the cure can cause more damage than the disease.

If the road ahead is perfectly straight, driving by the rear-view mirror is fine. But when a curve appears, you're in trouble.

Speculation is an anarchic force that requires constant government monitoring and restraint — but like a pendulum, the restraints always eventually snap. Speculators continually probe for openings, waiting for the next time the government fails to plug the gaps.

The author traces from the tulip mania all the way to the Great Depression — from distant history to the modern era. A pattern emerges: as finance has grown more sophisticated (or governments more vigilant), each time a suddenly liberalized system falls into frenzy, the affected population grows larger. From tulip speculators, the circle expanded to banks, brokers, and the general public. A single book walks you through a century or two of this cycle.