Financial distress

“ What are called financial crises are merely an extension of this critical condition to the larger business community. Financial panics which sometimes follow upon financial crises are a precipitate of this critical condition. ”

“ Sparks for ready money, rather than with Wills on long credit; those who listened to her found their circumstances far more comfortable at the year's end, while the rest, tempted, like some of their betters, by the pleasure of putting off the evil day of payment, like them, at last found themselves plunged in debt and distress. ”

“ It’s been seven years since the worst financial crisis in generations spread from Wall Street to Main Street – a crisis that cost millions of Americans their jobs, their homes, their life savings. It was a crisis that cost all of us. ”

“ This, the greatest economic catastrophe that the modern human structure has known, immeasurably more calamitous than any other that ever occurred, was borne by the financial system of the United States almost without a tremor. ”

“ Debts are then incurred which perhaps the young couple are unable to meet, so that when other expenses grow, and trouble or misfortune overtake them, they are speedily plunged into the deepest distress and indigence. ”

“ I would relieve the distress by the application of appropriate remedies to notorious diseases—a bankrupt act to bankrupt banks—taxation to bank issues—restoration of the land revenue to its proper destination—the imposition of economy upon this taxing, borrowing, squandering, gold-hating, paper-loving administration; and by restoring, as soon as possible, the reign of democracy, economy, and hard money.
The distress! still the distress. Distress, still the staple of all the whig speeches made here, and of all the cabinet reports which come down to us. Distress is the staple of the whole. ”

“ At such times many laborers are thrown out of employment, many [Pg 52] more work part time only, the wages of nearly all are lowered, and most other classes of income are cut down. Depression and, in extreme cases, panic are the result, and these have serious consequences other than financial. ”

“ So grave were the financial disturbances that several of the States were swept from their honest moorings by the cheap money craze, and irresponsible banks were created almost without limit or restraint, all of which brought speedy and fearful disaster to the people. ”

“ As used in economics, the term, however, implies a sudden change of business conditions for the worse, a collapse of prosperity. What precedes has not the appearance of disease, but rather that of exuberant health. Crises in economics may be distinguished as industrial, speculative, and financial, according as one or another influence seems to be more potent, but all are essentially financial. The change that occurs always is connected in some way with the use of money and credit. ”

“ But whether there was scarcity or plenty, the failures went on with a continuous ruin that nothing could check, while our larger economic life proceeded in a series of violent shocks, which we called financial panics, followed by long periods of exhaustion and recuperation. ”

“ After thinking over our financial condition, and puzzling her brain to find out some way of bettering it, she had come to the conclusion that she would make some money by her own exertions, to help defray our household expenses. ”

“ When this grows to such an extent as to require all or most of the money in the country to pay the interest on debts, then commerce slackens and there is little or no money among the people except as loaned out by the banks and others whose business it is to loan money. They are dealing in the blood of commerce, and when they take it from the arteries of commerce there is commercial sickness and distress. ”

“ Every period of inflation is followed by a loss of confidence, a shrinkage of values, depression of business, panics, lack of employment, and widespread disaster and distress. The heaviest part of the calamity falls on those least able to bear it. ”

“ Upon the poor man’s signature accompanied by those of two of his fellows, five and seven pounds sterling will be lent to him, to be reimbursed by weekly instalments. But that resource, which is a powerful help for the strong energetic man, is almost invariably a cause of distress and ruin to the weak. The borrowed money ebbs out in worthless expenditure, in the buying of some articles of apparel or furniture, which soon takes the road to the pawnbroker’s; and the debt alone remains weighing with all its weight on poor Paddy. ”

“ These derangements of business would seem to be of interest primarily to the bankers and brokers or to the large borrowers—to the capitalist class. The counterpart of the picture is to be found in the effect of the crisis upon the man [Pg 630] of small means and upon the poor. Inability to borrow may mean considerable inconvenience or even financial ruin for the man of large affairs but it does not usually mean actual suffering. ”

“ Looking at the scene in its political aspects, we behold one class of disorders, and looking at it in its financial aspects, we behold still another,—both together constituting a fearful sum-total, where financial disorder mingles with political. ”

“ There is distress because there is not money enough in circulation, say these peddlers of silver. It is a well understood fact that every sound bank in the country has idle money in its vaults looking for investment.
Money is precisely like the laborer - it, too, is on the lookout for work. Show money where it can make interest, and it will come out of those vaults as quick as the hungry laborer will answer the knock at his door.
Whatever distress the laborer is suffering, however, be sure that the millionaire owner of that idle money feels it not. ”

“ Above all, I deprecate a starving system, which has already produced great distress, lowered our funds, augments the necessary amount of the loan, increases its interest, and which has thrown a gloom over our affairs, and spread an universal terror in the market. ”

“ It destroys the happiness of his household.
Even those who are in the regular receipt of large incomes, feel crippled, often for years, by the incubus of debt. Weighed down by this, what can a man do to save—to economise with a view to the future of his wife and children? A man in debt is disabled from insuring his life, from insuring his house and goods, from putting money in the bank, from buying a house or a freehold. All his surplus gains must go towards the payment of his debt. ”

“ In the course of my life I have often known, and sometimes felt, the difficulty of getting money, but I now find myself involved in a much more singular distress, the difficulty of placing it, and if it continues much longer, I shall almost wish for my land again.
I perfectly agree with you, that it is bad management to purchase in the funds when they do not yield four per cent.,* [209] and I incline every day more and more to the encrease of the mortgage. ”

“ The economic financial incubuses you have created now control your lives, from the day of your conception, until long after your death. With your money they directly control your most essential industries; and indirectly hold ownership through their loans, and mortgages, of your business, your homes, farms, stock, lands. ”

“ Debt, indeed, had been creeping on them with slow but sure feet during the last five years. Who can see his children hungry, and not take bread if it be offered? Who can see his wife lying in sharpest want, and not seek a remedy if there be a remedy within reach? So debt had come upon them, and rude men pressed for small sums of money—for sums small to the world, but impossibly large to them. And he would hide himself within there, in that cranny of an inner chamber—hide himself with deep shame from the world—with shame, and a sinking heart, and a broken spirit. ”

“ The debt of the borrower loads his heart, cramps his hands, and dulls his labour. The gain of the lender hardens his heart, fouls his brain, and puts every means of mischief into his otherwise clumsy and artless hands. ”

“ It disappears from our sight, and those who have handled the most money, appear to be in the greatest distress for the means of paying their just debts! Perhaps there are exceptions to my general rule, but the exception proves the general rule to be a correct one. ”

“ On every hand we see people living on credit, putting off pay-day to the last, making, in the end, some desperate effort—generally by borrowing—to scrape the money together, and then struggling on again with the canker of care eating at their hearts; but their exertions are vain; they land at last in the inevitable goal of bankruptcy. If they would only be content to make the push in the beginning, instead of the end, they would save themselves all this misery. The great secret of being solvent and well-to-do and comfortable is to get ahead of your expenses. ”

“ Stimulation is a draft upon vital capital, when interest alone should suffice: it may be needed at times to bridge a chasm; but habitual living beyond vital income infallibly entails bankruptcy in health. ”

“ I was now too proud to work as a mere journeyman, and I commenced business for myself; but I began without capital, and a gourd of sorrow hung over me, while I stood upon sand. I had some credit; but, as my bills became payable, I ever found I had put off, till the very day they became due, the means of liquidating them; then had I to run and borrow five pounds from one, and five shillings from another, urged by despair, from a hundred quarters. My creditors grew clamorous; my wife upbraided me; I flew to the bottle—to the bottle! ”

“ Job probably felt the loss of his flocks and herds more than that of his wife and family, for he could enjoy his flocks and herds without his family, but not his family—not for long—if he had lost all his money. Loss of money indeed is not only the worst pain in itself, but it is the parent of all others. Let a man have been brought up to a moderate competence, and have no specially; then let his money be suddenly taken from him, and how long is his health likely to survive the change in all his little ways which loss of money will entail? ”

“ The cry comes up to us without ceasing for either more room, or better accommodations. Should we answer these cries promptly, and without regard to the question as to where the money is to come from, we should be hopelessly overwhelmed with debt within one year. ”

“ As the direct result of this kind of financial legerdemain, which converted the debt-paying medium of the country into an interest-bearing debt, the wages of labor and the prices of products steadily declined, business enterprises were wound up in bankruptcy at the rate of more than one thousand per month and millions of workmen were forced into idleness and thronged the highways in all parts of the country, demoralized, degraded and becoming a sure menace to civilization. ”

“ To say nothing of the graver matters which figure in a banker's book, and make, in these days of pounds, shillings, and pence, so large a part of the domestic tragedy of life—putting wholly aside all the grander transitions of property in house and land, of money on mortgage, and money in the funds— (and yet I might put in my claim to no trifling amount of ill luck in that way also, if I had a mind to try my hand at a dismal story) —counting for nought all weightier grievances, there is not a lady within twenty miles who can produce so large a list of small losses as my unfortunate self. ”

“ Every day in this city increases the distress for money, and you may rely upon it that the time is not far when a general and heavy shock will be felt in all the commercial cities of America. This opinion is not grounded upon a slight or partial view of the present situation of affairs. Many will be much injured by it, and frugality is the only remedy I see to the evil. As to ourselves, I look upon Morris’s debt as being in a very precarious situation. ”

“ If the stock of our bliss be in stranger hands vested,
The fund, ill secured, oft in bankruptcy ends;
But the heart issues bills which are never protested,
When drawn on the firm of—wife, children and friends. ”

“ At this juncture any accident to our venture might affect the whole American business fabric, and no one realized the danger of the situation better than Mr. Rogers and myself. During the anxious days that were passing we canvassed the dire possibilities that the situation contained, just as children tell each other ghost stories when left alone in the darkness of the night. The great catastrophes of finance, we remembered, had all been born of the unexpected—of unforeseen contingencies—far beyond the range of human foresight. ”

“ So the leaven of the law works its way through all society. The payments cannot be made out of these reduced means, the loss of the credit follows the loss of the money; the means of exchange, employment, and consumption are destroyed, and the world looks with amazement on the consummation of your work—the wealthiest nation in the world withering up under the blight of a universal insolvency; an abundance of all things beyond compute, and a misery and want beyond relief. ”

“ How to avoid Loss by Crises. Now, these bubbles and crises are very disastrous things; they lead to the ruin of many people, and there are few old families who have not lost money at one collapse or another. ”

“ See what we will do for you."
"Yes, it's free trade," bawled one newspaper.
"It's nefarious England," snarled another.
"It's the greed of Wall Street, the crime against silver, the burden of the mortgage," vociferated a third.
"It's 'hard times,'" the meek sighed, and furbished up last year's clothes, and cut the butcher's bill.
"Yes, it's 'hard times,' a time of psychological depression and distrust," softly said the rich man. "A good time to invest my savings profitably. Real estate is low; bonds and mortgages are as cheap as dirt. ”

“ Outside those who are actually engaged in a financial panic—such as brokers, bankers, merchants and manufacturers, who have loans to pay or receive, or acceptances falling due, and who are therefore too busy and too sorely beset to moralize on it or look at it objectively, as the philosophers say—there is a large body of persons who are not immediately affected by it, such as professional men, owners of secure investments, persons in receipt of well-assured salaries, ministers, newspaper writers, speculative economists, financiers, and farmers, to whom it is a source of secret enjoyment. ”