Die deutsche Kali-Industrie 1930

The work of the Stock Exchange

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1847185045

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-241659

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Die deutsche Kali-Industrie 1930

Edition:: (Als Ms. gedr.)

Place of publication:: Berlin

Publisher:: Hoppenstedt

Year of publication:: (1930)

Scope:: 94 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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146 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE Moreover, in the course of unsuccessful experimentation financed by the speculator many invaluable by-products have Seen accidentally discovered. The medizval alchemists failed to liscover the philosopher’s stone which would turn base metals into gold, but they laid the foundation of modern chemistry. The original American oil men sought only the raw material for a patent medicine, but they laid bare the Pennsylvania petroleum fields. Raleigh mistook iron pyrites for gold, but he started the colonization of North America. It is probably no axaggeration to say that most of the scientific discoveries upon which modern civilization is so largely based, have resulted ‘rom the accidental discoveries of a disappointed and unsuc- -essful speculator. Thus, in the onward march of civilization the speculator is ‘he advance scout and pioneer of economic civilization. It is he who reconmoiters the posts of danger, who first attracts the enemy's fire and bears the first brunt of his resistance. From Friar Bacon to Edison, inventors and the speculators who snanced them have been the eyes of business, without whom industry and trade would lose their sense of direction. Very often the speculator is quite unconscious of the larger economic significance of his work. He simply wants a profit. Yet just this willingness to take risks for possible profits has made the United States the dynamic and progressive country that it is today. It has been by such blind groping and stumbling toward the light that modern civilization has been achieved. Exploration Replaced by Exploitation.—The age of Balboa and Magellan is past. In the field of pioneering the isks of exploitation have replaced the risks of exploration. Speculation today is concerned, not with “lands beyond the sunset” or “perilous seas forlorn,” but with new oil conces- sions, new railroads, and new industrial projects organized as corporations, with shares to sell. In consequence, Wall Street has become the last frontier and the true haunt of the modern

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