Quote of the Day (Andrew Ross Sorkin, on 1929 and Our ‘Sweeping New Age of Financialization and Innovation’)

“We are in the grip of a sweeping new age of financialization and innovation — the boldest transformation in money and investing since the 1920s — that is also driven by the idea of expanding access to markets. Private equity, venture capital and private credit, once the preserve of institutions and wealthy individuals, are now about to be repackaged for the masses, even woven into 401(k) retirement plans. Crypto tokens are being sold as a way to buy slices of private firms like SpaceX and OpenAI, in the gray zone of securities law….

“Yet history offers a blunt reminder: When transformation comes this quickly, it rarely benefits everyone unless it is paired with transparency, oversight and regulation. The dot-com boom of the late 1990s was pitched as a democratizing moment, too, until it collapsed under a wave of hype and fraud. The pattern is familiar, stretching back to 1929: Whenever access expands faster than safeguards, charlatans rush in and ordinary investors are often left holding the bag.”—Financial journalist and historian Andrew Ross Sorkin, “1929 Vibes,” The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Oct. 19, 2025