Archive | History

Risk Archive: Preserving a Financial Knowledge Base

July 30, 2011

Who remembers RiskChat.com, a forum on financial risk management that I had the pleasure and honor of hosting from 1996 to 2009? It was the go-to website for financial professionals to discuss risk management, trading, financial engineering and a host of related topics. Over its life, the forum accumulated some 15,000 posts, a valuable knowledge base [...]

Economic Interests and the American Civil War

April 11, 2011

Tuesday, April 12, 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. The ensuing Civil War was a conflict of the industrial revolution. New technologies, such as rifles, railroads and steamships, facilitated bloodletting on a horrific scale. It consolidated power in the federal government in ways the founders had hoped to prevent. [...]

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

March 22, 2011

March 25, 2011 marks the hundred year anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. One hundred forty-six workers perished in a blaze that engulfed the ten story Asch Building in lower Manhattan. Most were young seamstresses who worked six days a week for a pittance. The tragedy unfolded blocks from where, ninety years later, the twin towers [...]