notanotherbookreview

How 3 wealthy American patriots financed a 16 million dollar loan for the War of 1812 , initiating investment banking. Then came a whistleblower... "Parish, Girard and Astor jointly pledged to take more than ten million, but not at the 6% Gallatin (U.S. Treasury) had offered. Rather, they agreed to pay in 88.00 a share and in return to receive an annuity that would yield them 13 years of annual payments that would eventually total the full one hundred dollars per share. The pledged amounts were more than the trio's current combined private fortunes, a considerable risk. Nonetheless, they put up 10 million dollars' worth of the certificates apiece, and resold the rest. The big purchasers were insurers in Philadelphia, and banks and brokers in new York, and merchants in Baltimore, who all resold the certificates in smaller batches to hundreds, perhaps thousands of individuals. A list of the occupations of some of the individuals to whom Girard's bank sold the b...