Chaplin and the Crash of 1929

"Jose Amaral" <jamsam.RemoveThis@uol.com.br> wrote:

> Today an article published in a Brazilian newspaper claimed that Chaplin
> sold all his stocks two days before the Crash of 1929. It also said that
> Chaplin was suspected of privileged information and this created an scandal,
> one of the reasons that Chaplin was denied reentry to the USA.
>
> I couldn't find confirmation to any of these claims.
>
> According to David Robinson ("Chaplin: His Life and Art") and Kenneth S.
> Lynn ("Charlie Chaplin and His Times"), Chaplin sold his stocks in 1928.
>
> And I doubt such a thing as "privileged information" could exist in a
> phenomenon like the Crash of 1929.
>
> Any thoughts?




I know of only one pundit who predicted a crash, a market
commentator named Roger Babson. But he'd predicted the same thing in
1927 and 1928. The market peaked very early in September 1929, then
steadily fell for six weeks. Then it crashed, and for all the usual
reasons: rising interest rates, a tightened credit supply, a slipping
economy and investors' belief that the boom was over.

Chaplin had already sold all his stocks, because he'd been
intrigued with C. H. Douglas' "Social Credit" movement, and felt that
stocks and the economy were both about to crash because of a tight
labor market.

Of course, those things did happen, but unemployment was a
*symptom*, not the *cause* of the problem. But Chaplin believed that
all profits ultimately begin with wages, and with unemployment rising
in 1928-29, that was his cue to sell. He did the right thing, for the
wrong reason.




--Shush--
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