Summary of John Brooks's The Go-Go Years

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 On April 22, 1970, Henry Ross Perot of Dallas, Texas, suffered a paper stock-market loss of about $450 million. He still had, on paper, almost a billion dollars left after the loss, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that his one-day loss amounted to more than the total assets of any charitable foundation in the country.

#2 On April 22, Earth Day, a group of conservationist leaders had picked April 22 as a day of national dedication to the cause of eliminating pollution.

#3 The first My Lai revelations were five months old, and the New Haven riot was about to begin that same day. The stock market had fallen drastically, and the dollar was in bad shape in the international markets.

#4 The parallels between the crashes of 1929 and 1969 are clear. In each case, there were insider manipulators who used privileged information and superior market technique to manipulate stock prices and deceive the public.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822504264

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Book preview

Insights on John Brooks's The Go-Go Years

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

On April 22, 1970, Henry Ross Perot of Dallas, Texas, suffered a paper stock-market loss of about $450 million. He still had, on paper, almost a billion dollars left after the loss, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that his one-day loss amounted to more than the total assets of any charitable foundation in the country.

#2

On April 22, Earth Day, a group of conservationist leaders had picked April 22 as a day of national dedication to the cause of eliminating pollution.

#3

The first My Lai revelations were five months old, and the New Haven riot was about to begin that same day. The stock market had fallen drastically, and the dollar was in bad shape in the international markets.

#4

The parallels between the crashes of 1929 and 1969 are clear. In each case, there were insider manipulators who used privileged information and superior market technique to manipulate stock prices and deceive the public.

#5

On April 29, 1970, a group of medical students and faculty members from several New York City colleges came to Wall Street to demonstrate for peace. They were greeted warmly by the vicar of Trinity Church, Donald R. Woodward.

#6

On Friday, May 4, 1970, thousands of students from New York University, Hunter College, and the city’s public high schools descended on Wall Street to protest the war in Vietnam and the imprisonment of Panthers. They were met by construction workers wearing orange and yellow hard hats, who were there to protect the financial district.

#7

The Wall Street riot of 1970 occurred just before noon, when most of the elite working population was not on the street. The market was unaffected. Most of Wall Street’s elite working population watched the carnage from high, safe windows.

#8

There was little Wall Street could have done to help the protesters that day, but the symbolic aspect of their role as spectators was clear: they sympathized with the underdogs, but kept their hands clean.

#9

Wall Street, as a political issue, was dead. The Old Left had stopped attacking Wall Street long ago, and the New Left simply ignored it.

#10

Wall Street was the embodiment of everything America was beginning to reject. It was a simplified, idealized version of the older and now largely discredited America, unrelated or even antipathetic to the new America that was struggling to come into being.

#11

Wall Street, which had been the first place in the nation to be physically ungreened, was also the first place in the nation to be spiritually ungreened. While the Wall Street kings played out their classic dramas behind the high windows, the vassals, footmen, and ladies-in-waiting were short of the little satisfactions that make life bearable.

#12

Ross Perot, the billionaire who ran for president in 1992 as a third-party candidate, was a perfect Western populist. He felt a fear and suspicion toward city slickers, including those in Wall Street. He had grown up believing that the frontier still dominated American life.

#13

Perot was a pioneer who made his way upriver and overland to New Boston, Texas, where he had hacked out a clearing, hewed timber, and built a trading post and general store. He had no investors or backers, and his initial investment was $1,000. But persistence and salesmanship paid off.

#14

Perot’s education in the