In the 1920s you could buy stocks on margin. You could put 10 percent down and borrow the rest against your stocks.

A prudent silence will frequently be taken for wisdom and a sentence or two cautiously thrown in will sometimes gain the palm of knowledge, while a man well informed but indiscreet and unreserved will not uncommonly talk himself out of all consideration and weight. (Alexander Hamilton's 'thesis on discretion' written to his son James shortly before his fatal duel with Burr.)

One of the very nice things about investing in the stock market is that you learn about all different aspects of the economy. It's your window into a very large world.

In the 1920s you could buy stocks on margin. You could put 10 percent down and borrow the rest against your stocks.

A lot of the money in the stock market is really our national retirement plan, for better or worse.

In the 1920s, Wall Street was a world that was really dominated by professional speculators and stock pools. These people had a monopoly over information.

When news of the crash came, probably a lot of people in small towns and farms across America felt a sense of grim satisfaction that the sinners had finally been punished for their wicked ways.