The work of the Stock Exchange

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1831284952

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-225876

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Meeker, James Edward http://d-nb.info/gnd/126597340

Title:: The work of the Stock Exchange

Edition:: Revised edition

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: The Ronald Press Company

Year of publication:: [1930]

Scope:: XVI, 720 Seiten; Illustrationen, Diagramme

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter V. The dangers and benefits of stock speculation

Collection:: Economics Books

STOCK SPECULATION—DANGERS AND BENEFITS 155 try tell only of failure and final repeal.®®* The fact of the mat- ter is that in attempts to legislate concerning so universal and fundamental a matter as speculation, the statute-makers set themselves against more powerful laws than any statute which ever adorned the printed page—the irresistible economic laws by whose processes nations have risen and fallen, and owing to whose unimpeded operation not merely progress, not merely the maintenance of the present business and social order, but the ability of the human being to find the food, shelter, and clothing necessary to mere existence and life itself, are basically and necessarily due. These principles defy the passing fiat of unwise legislators and hasty public opinion almost as com- pletely as the law of gravitation. The law-makers who attempt to hamper with unscientific legislation the life-giving economic energies released by speculation, are embarking on perilous waters; any temporary success of their efforts only intensifies the ultimate recoil of pent-up economic forces to the destruction of civilization and human life. Education the Only Genuine Remedy.—This is as true of speculation in the stock exchanges, although the bearing here is less direct and obvious, as it is of speculation in the wider fields of agriculture and commerce. The complex and tested ma- chinery by which the New York Stock Exchange practically and successfully administers the principal American market place for securities, with constant regard for the fundamental economic forces exerting themselves within it, affords a steady contrast in the swiftness and flexibility of its operation to the dogmatic and futile statutes concerning speculation with which the history of legislation from the Middle Ages to the present day is replete. Evils in the speculative factors inherent in pro- duction and distribution there undoubtedly are, but there exist no possible legislative short-cuts or panaceas for their abolition. Only the slow and tedious but old and sure method of educating the people into an understanding of economic law, particularly % See Chapter VIL, p. 200.

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