Not Unaptly Denominated Bulls and Bears

The excerpt from the following speech by Mr. Whitbread is from a debate on the legality of loan made by the government, through the offices of the Admiralty, to a questionable character with government connections. It was reported 200 years ago today in The London Times - Saturday, June 15, 1805.

Mr. WHITBREAD continued. "It might be so (a cry of hear! hear!) but he [Boyd, the questionable character who got the loan] was the contractor. This was not all; in the month of April ensuing, this soaring speculator engaged for an additional loan of seven millions and a half, expanding his concerns with the Government to the magnitude of twenty-five million and a half sterling. Where would this terminate? Was there no monied in the world but Mr. Boyd? It would be found upon inquiry that he was pennyless; that he was in a state of insolvency and ruin, when the confidence of the Minister was thus reposed in him. Some suspicions might naturally have been entertained when the sum of 40,000 was applied for to the government. I am astonished by these money transactions. Accustomed from my infancy to trade, tp the Corn market and the Hop market, and with the regular plan of commercial intercourse. I can annex no idea to this vast scheme of speculation. The person to whom I am most indebted, of whom I say little when I assert to him I owe all of my property (or from him I have received what is much more valuable), I say, that venerated relation of mine , by the industry of half a century, amassed a considerable fortune: but these monied men acquire in a single day what it is the labour of a protracted lifetime to obtain. I do not mean to detract from the nobility, from the rank they enjoy, and the influence they possess in the State; yet while others are proud of the distance at which they are removed from their founder, I may be permitted to exult in the proximity I bear to the founder of my family. The monied markets are very different from the ordinary trade; great gains are made in a short interval, and passions are inflamed by the spirit of gambling, and an assembly of reasonable people are degraded below the condition of humanity, and thus debased, were not unaptly denominated bulls and bears.

They remain with us today, these monied men who "acquire in a single day what it is the labour of a protracted lifetime to obtain." If anything, there are more of them now than in the days before Charles Dickens was born, and their building of fortunes without contributing anything of value to the capitalistic system was certainly part of the rampant poverty in London he so vividly depicted. When an individual saves a modest sum of money and invests it in a business, together with his credit and good name, he bears the risk alone, yet if he speculates with billions of other peoples money, there's always an opportunity for a government bailout, which is somehow perceived to be in the public interest. When the New York Stock Exchange replaces the floor specialists with computer programs in the not too distant future; there will almost certainly be one good market collapse blamed on their demise. However, I'm in favor of any measure that removes middlemen and speculators from the financial system, and it will be a triumph for capitalism if stock markets ever become safe places to invest money.