PDF American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune Free

PDF American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Street's
Biggest Fortune Free

PDF American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune
Free
Description :
The gripping biography of Jay Gould, the greatest 19th-century robber barons,
whose brilliance, greed, and bare-knuckled tactics made him richer than
Rockefeller and led Wall Street to institute its first financial reforms.Had Jay
Gould put his name on a university or concert hall, he would undoubtedly have
been a household name today. The son of a poor farmer whose early life was
marked by tragedy, Gould saw money as the means to give his family a better
life even if, to do so, he had to pull a fast one on everyone else. After entering
Wall Street at the age of twenty-four, he quickly became notorious when he
paralyzed the economy and nearly toppled President Ulysses S. Grant in the
Black Friday market collapse of 1869 in an attempt to corner the market on
gold an event that remains among the darkest days in Wall Street history.
Through clever financial maneuvers, he gained control over one of every six
miles of the country 8217 s rapidly expanding network for railroad tracks
coming close to creating the first truly transcontinental railroad and making
himself one of the richest men in America. American Rascal shows Gould
8217 s complex, quirky character. He was at once praised for his brilliance by
Rockefeller and Vanderbilt and condemned for forever destroying American
business values by Mark Twain. He lived a colorful life, trading jokes with
Thomas Edison, figuring Thomas Nast 8217 s best sketches, paying Boss
Tweed 8217 s bail, and commuting to work in a 200-foot yacht. Gould thrived
in an expanding, industrial economy in which authorities tolerated inside
trading and stock price manipulation because they believed regulation would
stifle progress. But by taking these practices to new levels, Gould showed how
unbridled capitalism was, in fact, dangerous for the American economy. This
eye-opening history explores Gould 8217 s audacious exploitation of economic
freedom triggered the first public demands for financial reform a call that still

resonates today.