American History

[Bob]

The remote was invented in 1956 by a Robert Adler  ZENITH  martketed the first one.

By the way, I just remembered that TV was first publicly demonstrated at the 1939 New York World's Fair and that there were operating systems as early as 1933.

[madupont]

http://www.smokershistory.com/Whitney.htm

About the sixth paragraph down, you will find this:

The Panic of 1907: "The panic was a bank panic, but the banks’ losses and runs on their deposits were caused at least in substantial part by bank speculation in securities. The Aldrich-Vreeland Act of 1908, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, and finally the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, all were designed to respond to this irresponsible banking environment. At the time though, no effective federal mechanism existed to control the banks. The intervention was led by the nation’s de facto central banker, J.P. Morgan, asked by the administration to save the American money supply as he had during the gold crisis of 1895. The story is well-known of Morgan’s hasty return from an Episcopal retreat in Richmond, Virginia, and the all-night meetings at the Morgan mansion on Fifth Avenue, attended by George Baker of the First National Bank, James Stillman of the National City Bank, E.H. Harriman, and other financial luminaries, with Morgan demanding the infusion of funds by each of the
attendees in order to shore up the failing trusts. (Morgan refused to support Knickerbocker because of its particularly bad behavior and heavy demands. Its president, Charles T. Barney, committed suicide, but every account of the story suggests that perhaps Mr. Barney had not been his own executioner.)" (Chapter Six. From Trusts Emergent From Regulating Trusts to Regulating Securities. By Lawrence Mitchell.)


Mitchell / University of Illinois College of Law (pdf, 82 pp)

Ps. I hadn't noticed that in the Paley visit to Whitney, about the sentence being out of sequence. That would be the editing of the New York Social Diary's editor for the article that was actually written, in consideration of the month, about famous Leo persons born in August, the other was Jackie Kennedy; but I figured you would probably rather have the pertinent banking genealogy and connections.

Something tells me, that Bill Paley was used to having a "remote" around his office as well as several in his home.

The above link at top of post has more of that because it kept nagging me that there must be an earlier Jock Whitney in the line who was married to Gertrude Vanderbilt whom I believe was the sister-in-law of Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt. Nope, I checked, it was Harry Payne Whitney who married Gertrude (who had the studio,in the building when I lived west of Washington Square).

[madupont]

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/04/the-2010-economic-doomsday/#comments

[weezo]

Maddie,

Thanks to you and Bob for the history lesson. I had no idea that tv existed before I was born. It was later coming to my knowledge. My grandmother had the first set in the family sometime in the early fifties. We had one in our home by the mid-fifties. I'm not sure how early there was a tv station in Philly, which is where we got our fuzzy broadcasts from. The signal, coming over the mountains from Philly was not especially good, but with my father, spending hours on the roof of the house to tune it in just right, we were able to enjoy some programming, including three hours a day of American Bandstand.

[nnyhav]

NYT gets first mention of '07 v '07: Robert Bruner of UVa bringing a book to add to the list:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/weekinreview/05norris.html
(that's Floyd not Frank)

Rich Man's Panic II: Hedge funds, unregulated intermediaries, facing potentially massive withdrawal notices from investors Aug 15 (rules tightly govern extraction of principal, many quarterly).

Capital-driven contractions used to be sharp and short, but who can tell now with various 'safety' mechanisms in place? (I agree, Robert, not economists.)

[madupont]

weezo and Bob

It is a long time to look back(and something tells me that I'd have to check the playwrights who did tv to be positive and the actors involved)but I seem to remember and have mentioned to other posters long in the past that I loved to have a "sick day"sometime just about 1950 because we had come into the great age of television drama (and I do not mean soap). Four to seven years later, I would slam out the door  in the evening for theatre rehearsals, because it seems to me the face and voice of Ronald Reagan was the spokesman for the General Electric Theatre. Don't want to give the impression that I was angrily missing an opportunity to listen to his sales pitch but I had more important things to do which were certainly more enjoyable.

I'm afraid the only reason that I would understand Bill Paley searching for Whitney's "remote" was because his wife Babe Paley was the daughter of the eminent neurosurgeon,Harvey Cushing; a name familiar to me during those years because I was still typing up the file-cards for the cross-file indexing of my father's surgical library from the medical-surgical journals of the day. Pre-computer, the articles would be indexed in triplicate by syndrome, surgical technique, and the names of the surgeons publishing; then the cards would go into file-card drawers just like those at your local library. Haven't times changed?

Other than that, I would have imagined that Bill Paley was the husband of Grace Paley, one of my favorite short-story writers in that era!

[Dzimas]

Recently got back from Scotland.  I was surprised to learn on a graveyard tour of Edinburgh that the Declaration of Independence owes a debt to the Solemn League and Covenant for its inspiration,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solemn_League_and_Covenant

There is a memorial to the Scottish Covenanters at the Greyfriars Kirkyard,

http://www.headstones.fsnet.co.uk/greyf.htm

although the cemetery is best known for Greyfriars Bobby,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyfriars_Bobby

[madupont]

thanatopsy

Book Row: An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade 
  Author  Marvin Mondlin & Roy Meador.
 
Publisher Carroll & Graf   
Format paperback 
ISBN 0786716525
Pages/Publication Date 405/2005
Daedalus Item Code 71992
 
 
List Price: $15.95
Sale Price: $6.98
You Save: $8.97 
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Description
 
To a booklover, the only thing that could be more tragic than a lost world is a lost world of books. In New York City, just south of 14th Street in Manhattan, mostly on the seven blocks of Fourth Avenue between Union Square and Astor Place, there existed for some eight decades a bibliophiles' paradise of rare and second-hand bookstores. "There are still used bookstores scattered about the city, but the loss of this unique neighborhood, as Book Row illustrates time and again, is one to be mourned," opined James Polk in the New York Times. This elegiac volume, from an estate buyer and a passionate collector, comes from interviews with dozens upon dozens of the book people who bought, sold, and collected there. 
 
 
Order online or call 1-800-395-2665 (U.S.) or 1-410-309-2705 (Outside U.S. & Canada)
This site features merchandise from our catalogs and store, in addition to items available only online. Availability may vary.
©2007 Daedalus Books, Inc. | Contact customer service at custserv@daedalusbooks.com
 
 

[thanatopsy]

Hi madd,

Oh so sad!

I spent many an hour on Book Row and got lots of good bargains.  But alas, those days are gone forever. Well, one good thing did come out of it: I gave away over 2,000 books to charities.  Now, someone can love them like I did.

[madupont]

Thanatopsy,

I loved the discovery of the place. It was so unexpected to just walk into it one day.

Glad to know there is another person who does with books what I have done at least three times in the past; and I expect that probably did total the equivalent of what you contributed.

[Bob]

nnyhav
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/10/business/worldbusiness/09cnd-eurobank.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Is this another sign of an impending general contraction--or just another short term ripple in the waters?

[nnyhav]

nnyhav
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/10/business/worldbusiness/09cnd-eurobank.html

Is this another sign of an impending general contraction--or just another short term ripple in the waters?

It's a the good question. A general funding supply/demand imbalance is more a symptom of other dislocations, though.

The correct answer is "Yes", of course.

I recommend http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/ for better explication than I can provide.

Addendum:
1907 is catching on:

The Bruner/Carr book:
http://www.reuters.com/article/technology-media-telco-SP-A/idUSN0834410620070809

Floyd Norris again:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/10/business/10liquidity.html

[Chief global fixed income strategist at Lehman Brothers, Jack] Malvey says the current credit squeeze is not necessarily a sign that the financial system is in trouble. What's happening is a washing away of excess that fed an unprecedented binge of leveraged buyouts and lax lending to unqualified borrowers.

Like in any great flood, weaker players will get washed away, while stronger players will remain standing.

Malvey says the current squeeze may resemble the so-called Banker's Panic of 1907, exactly a century ago.

http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSN0832017120070809

[madupont]

Bob

MORTGAGE LOSSES ECHO IN EUROPE AND ON WALL STREET

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/10/business/10markets.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th

On Thursday, stocks on Wall Street suffered their biggest
one-day decline since February. Indexes fell more than 2
percent across Asia in early trading today.


- QUOTATION OF THE DAY -

"Trust was shaken today. Credit depends on trust. If trust disappears, then credit disappears, and you have a systemic issue."
- THOMAS MAYER, chief European economist at Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, on
yesterday's market turmoil.

[madupont]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/11/business/worldbusiness/11markets.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1186819302-mgfM+Dpy7mbuQKM1KEkl4w


Central Banks Intervene to Calm Volatile Markets

[Dzimas]

All this makes me wonder if the 2001 crash had less to do with the World Trade Center bombings and more to do with the greatly overextended credit at the time.  Seems we never learn from our mistakes, just get while the getting is good.