Wealth, War and Wisdom
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
Wealth, War and Wisdom
| Author | Barton Biggs |
|---|---|
| Published | 2008 |
| Pages | 358 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Barton Biggs goes back through the equity markets of the Second World War to test whether prices recognised the turning points as they happened — and finds that they largely did — then asks how families actually preserved wealth through occupation, inflation, confiscation and currency destruction. |
Wealth, War and Wisdom
Where I heard about it
- Li Lu — on Li Lu’s Recommended Book List, the Himalaya Capital bibliography, in the section on Value Investing, Finance, and Capitalism (listed as Wiley, 2008) — the wealth-preservation case taken to the limit, where the question stops being returns and becomes survival.
About this edition
Biggs ran research and then strategy at Morgan Stanley before starting a hedge fund. In his account, British stocks bottomed around the summer of 1940 and turned before the invasion threat visibly lifted, the American market turned in 1942 near Midway, and the German market peaked as the Eastern Front did. Land, businesses and diversification across jurisdictions survived; paper claims on a defeated state did not.
Connections
- Li Lu’s Recommended Book List — the list this came from.
- World War II — the period whose markets the book reads as a signal.
- Morgan Stanley — where Biggs spent the career behind the argument.
- Market Cycles — the claim that prices anticipate rather than report.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.