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On today's episode, we'll be outlining three of the biggest bubbles in financial history the 1720 South Sea Bubble, the Railway Mania of 1845 and the Japanese Stock Market and Property Bubble of 1989.
They say that history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
And that is the theme that plays right into all three of these bubbles.
Each displayed unprecedented levels of greed, speculative excess and the belief that fundamentals did not matter for investors.
I believe that studying the financial bubbles of the past is practically essential to ensuring that we ourselves don't fall prey to one during our investing lifetime.
Bubbles remind me a bit about house fires.
We assume that it's something that only happens to other people.
It's easy for us, as investors, to become complacent and assume that the good times of the past will almost certainly continue.
This kind of thinking led investors in Japan, for example, to lose tremendous amounts of wealth in a matter of a few years.
As John Maynard Keynes said, the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
So I picked up Edward Chancellor's book Devil Take the Hindmost, which was a sobering reminder that our mistakes as humans have repeated themselves time and time again throughout history.
So with that, I hope you enjoyed today's episode on history's most historic market bubbles.
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Welcome to The Investor's Podcast.
I'm your host, Clay Fink, and today we'll be discussing Edward Chancellor's book Devil Take the Hindmost.
This book is one of the best books ever written about speculation bubbles and why investors keep repeating the same mistakes across centuries.
Through these historic events, Chancellor shares the key factors at play that helped fuel bubbles is that they just tend to repeat themselves and show up in these different forms.
And Chancellor is a perfect person to cover such examples as he's practically a walking library.
He's read practically everything on the subject and clearly understands investor psychology and what is really driving human behavior.
I think this is a really important topic to cover on the show, because learning about and understanding lead people to losing say, 70 to 80 of their capital.
In the more extreme examples, the payoff of avoiding such bubbles can be extraordinary over the long run.
So I hope this episode will be a useful tool for you to avoid getting caught up in the bubbles we see today or in the future about investing.
Is that almost nothing about?
It is black or white.
So much of investing is subjective.
While it can be easy to judge somebody as a speculator, I think that all of us, to some degree, actually are speculators.
Let's say, if you purchase the SP 500 because you believe that markets are efficient and will be more profitable in the future than they are today, and that investors will continue to want to pay up for the companies in that index.
If you're starting a local coffee shop in your city, you're speculating that the economy in that city will continue as usual.
For an economy to thrive, you need entrepreneurs who are willing to take these risks and, dare I say, speculate with their own self-interest in mind.
For example, with the expansion of the internet in the 1990s, it would have been impossible for many companies to raise money if there weren't people who believed in the possibility that that new technology could bring.
If the economy was full of investors who were totally risk averse, then it would be difficult for society to progress and to build out new ways of doing things.
But I think that speculation is something that lies a bit on a spectrum.
And the case studies outlined in Chancellor's book are the most extreme examples of speculation.
So the goal is to recognize what extreme speculation looks like and learn to largely avoid such activities.
The term speculation first developed economic meaning in the late 18th century.
Scottish moral philosopher and economist Adam Smith, he defined a speculator by his readiness to pursue short-term opportunities for profit.
His investments are fluid, whereas those of the conventional businessman are more or less fixed.
This train of thought was reiterated by John Miener Keynes, who described the term enterprise as the activity of forecasting the prospective yield of assets over their whole life.
In contrast to speculation, which he called the activity of forecasting the psychology of the market.
Speculation is conventionally defined as an attempt to profit from changes in the market price.
Now, this reminds me a bit of the idea in value investing of just thinking like an owner.
When my grandfather, for example, purchased farmland here in Nebraska in the 1970s, he purchased the land as if he was going to own it forever and pass that land down to his children, which is really exactly what he did.
Whereas if you're a speculator, you might purchase the land this year with the hopes that someone else is going to buy it for more next year.
So it's this active versus passive approach.
If you truly think like an owner, you really shouldn't care all that much about what the share price does over the next year or two.
Turning back to the idea of my grandfather purchasing land, If I had asked him how he would react if the value of the land he purchased fell by 50, he probably wouldn't care that much, because he purchased the land for the crops and the income that it would produce for the years ahead.
The quoted price of the land actually made no difference.
Many would consider selling that position because they were interested in eventually selling that stock for a gain.
Fred Schwed stated, speculation is an effort, probably unsuccessful, to turn a little money into a lot.
Investment is an effort which should be successful to prevent a lot of money becoming a little."
According to modern market theory, which states that markets are efficient, share prices would reflect their underlying intrinsic value spirits.
No crowd instincts, no emotions of greed or fear, no trend following speculators and no irrational speculative bubbles.
The case studies outlined in the book are anything of this sort, as they are history's most pronounced examples of vast speculation among the crowds.
What's sort of funny about this is that when many everyday people hear about the stock market or really any financial concept for that matter they just don't find it to be that interesting.
But I personally find some of these topics to be incredibly fascinating, including the study of bubbles.
The reason is that bubbles aren't really about numbers or spreadsheets, storytelling and how people react when their emotions are playing a pivotal role in their decision-making.
When you study bubbles, you're really studying how otherwise irrational people can trick themselves into becoming delusional.
So let's transition here to discuss the first case study we'll outline today, which is the South Sea Bubble.
In the year 1711 in London England, the South Sea Company was established to take over 10 million guaranteed to convert into its own shares.
In a sense, the British national debt was being privatized.
In exchange, the South Sea Company received an annual interest payment from the government and the monopoly of trade with the Spanish colonies in South America.
Although the monopoly of trade seemed promising, the South Sea Company acted more like a financial institution, as In 1719 it took over a further 17 million pounds of government debt in the form of annuities, which it then converted into South Sea stock.
By absorbing this debt, the company gained a guaranteed stream of interest payments from the government, which was far more reliable than the uncertain trade profits.
Now, the issue the South Sea Company had was that there were all of these holders of government debt who were receiving a safe and reliable income stream.
You can imagine that if you purchased government bonds that paid say, 5 interest, you would only be willing to part ways with that consistent income if what you were getting in exchange was much better or more enticing.
The company made this trade attractive by pushing up its share price.
So the shares the debt holders received were worth more on the market than the safe debt that they parted ways with.
In simple terms, people traded a guaranteed but boring income for shares that looked immediately more.
Kessler referred to this as the South Sea Scheme, as all parties had an interest in continuing to inflate the South Sea share price.
The company benefited because a higher share price meant that it could issue fewer shares to take over the same amount of government debt, leaving extra cash as profit.
The government benefited because the scheme reduced its interest payments and worked best politically if people eagerly accepted it.
And the debt investors benefited because a higher share price made the shares they received or already owned look more valuable and easier to sell for a gain.
In 1720, the price of shares swiftly began to rise from 128 at the start of the year to 187 in February, to over 300 not too long after.
Meanwhile, several members of the government were secretly handed shares of the company by its directors.
The shares were issued at a premium to the market price and no deposit was required.
Upon receiving the shares, several government officials now had an interest in keeping the share price rising, regardless of the cost to the nation.
The conundrum with this scheme which sort of made my head spin when I was reading through it, because it just defies all logic.
It's that it appeared that all of the parties benefited, And this made it difficult for anyone to determine a rational estimate of what the shares were worth.
So some argued that as the share prices rose higher, the more they were actually worth.
Those who were more financially savvy and were able to keep their emotions under control, they understood that this just defied all economic logic.
Usually, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
One economist explained that people who bought surplus South Sea stock at its elevated price must be deprived of all common sense and understanding, since they would be giving their money away to the original stockholders and annuitants.
The economist clearly saw that the scheme was dependent on convincing the annuitants into converting their securities into shares, and for more, and interest payments and the trading prospects of the company were not good.
So the potential for loss for investors was substantial given the prices that investors were paying.
The South Sea Company was led by a man named John Blunt.
In running the company, Blunt had one primary goal, and that was to keep the stock price rising.
In Chancellor's words, he looked for a thousand ways to attain this end.
Blunt built up public enthusiasm for the stock and offered the chance for the public to invest on multiple occasions.
For example, in April of 1720, 2 million pounds of South Sea stock was offered to the public at 300 a share and the subscription sold out in less than an hour.
This price was three times the notional value.
This would be like buying a ticket to a concert for 150, where the ticket prices And given the public's enthusiasm around the concert and the scarcity of the tickets, you expected to eventually sell your ticket for more than you purchased it.
The catch is that, instead of this ticket gaining you entry to go see the Beatles, it's to see an artist that played on Tuesday nights at your local pub.
But this still doesn't tell the whole story here.
Blunt was also intentional about not being fully transparent taken place yet, which made it impossible for anyone to confidently determine the value of the company.
In Blunt's view, the more confusion, the better.
One of the ways that Blunt made the share offers more attractive to the public was by allowing them to purchase shares on leverage.
Only a 20 deposit was required and the remainder would be paid over.
The helped increase the stock price, as speculators were able to purchase more shares than they otherwise could, and the supply of shares available for sale was reduced, as many shares were held by the company on margin.
Once the debt holders were able to convert their debt instrument to South Sea shares, the vast majority of them did so.
Holders of government debt who rushed blindly into shares included some of the highest profile firms, including the Bank of England and Million Bank.
Even King George was in on the action and went against others' advice of selling shares during the mania and instead wanted to purchase more shares in the new subscription's issuance.
In the end, 31 million pounds of debt was converted with a nominal value of just 30% of that amount.
As the bubble was inflating, several smart investors took notice that it just couldn't last forever, so they started selling their shares.
English mathematician and physicist, Sir Isaac Newton, started selling his shares, and economist Richard Cancelon sold his shares as well, with the anticipation of a collapse.
While it's impossible to precisely predict when a bubble will end, the departure of more experienced investors can be a signal that the peak is nearing.
Adam Anderson, a former cashier of the South Sea Company, later claimed that many purchasers of shares bought them knowing that their long-term prospects were hopeless and they aimed to get rid of them in a crowded alley to others more credulous than themselves.
The rise of South Sea shares led to a number of other examples of investor irrationality, such as bubble companies.
In the months following the South Sea scheme, new stock promotions were advertised in the newspaper to lure in investors and benefit from the speculative market environment.
Only four of the 190 bubble companies ended up being legitimate enterprises with a real underlying business underneath.
The rest investors greet.
But these bubble companies didn't necessarily take away the continued speculation in the South Sea Company, as a new issue went for 1000 pounds a share and it was sold out in a few hours.
The orchestrators of the scheme had become infatuated with their own success.
Increasing the amount they wanted to raise, increasing the share price they would issue at and lowering the deposit required to purchase shares on leverage.
And this is a common theme I see amongst many bubbles that end up crashing, whether it's the South Sea Company Enron, Long-Term Capital Management or Bernie Madoff.
The people orchestrating the scheme get in over their heads and have too much arrogance, overestimating their ability to keep the party going.
When the shares were at their height, he sold out and started to buy land with his profits.
He even sold more shares than he owned, securing the knowledge that the time would soon come when he could buy them back at a cheaper price.
If the scheme had been reasonably executed from the start, with a fixed value for the conversion of annuities into shares, and if Blunt had been content with a fairly priced stock, then the conversion would have proven to be useful to all parties.
But Blunt's reckless ambition destroyed any chance of success it might have had.
Now, when you hear that the South Sea Company took over 30 million pounds of debt, you might not think that's a big amount.
But to put this into perspective, the amount of debt they took over equated to about 80 of the country's GDP at the time.
So this was just an enormous scheme relative to the size of the economy.
The level of speculation had tangible impacts on the economy, as some would quit work to focus on speculating, spend their time chasing quick riches and, on the other side, see their wealth evaporate rather quickly.
Bubbles of this size usually send ripple effects throughout the entire economy.
Many who made fortunes go out and flaunt their newfound wealth buying houses, furniture and gold watches company launched its fourth and final subscription and once again, demand was overwhelming.
Huge crowds of speculators packed into the narrow streets around the South Sea house, pressing forward with cash and promises in hand.
In a matter of hours, the entire issue, which was 10000 shares shares had increased more than eight times in under six months.
However, directors of the South Sea Company were fearful that competition from the bubble companies would spoil the party.
New bubble companies were appearing almost daily, which would inevitably steal some of their firepower.
As a result, they attempted to monopolize the speculative enthusiasm by making the establishment of such companies illegal without government permission.
Ironically, the government crackdown on bubble companies led to their share prices collapsing, which led to margin calls for investors who own shares of the South Sea Company.
I think this is a big lesson that leverage cuts both ways.
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FordBlade Bank, which acted as the banker to the South Sea Company and had made extensive loans against the stock, they ended up failing.
By the end of September, the share price was below 200, representing a 75 decline in just four weeks.
The violence of the collapse took.
Even if many speculators knew that the high share price was not sustainable over the long run, they assumed that they would be able to carry on the scheme for longer.
One speculator reflected and shared how many had this dream about the newfound wealth they were creating, only to quickly be found with nothing in their hands.
With the collapse of the South Sea stock and the surrounding bubbles, it put a dent in consumer confidence which impacted practically everybody.
The oil to juice the economy is confidence and trust.
And without that confidence and trust, things really start to break down.
So, with the collapse of the South Sea Company, the British Parliament took action to confiscate the profits that the South Sea Company directors had made.
They brought in around 2 million pounds, which of course at that time was a ton of money.
Many speculators lost tremendous amounts of money.
The director of the Bank of England went bankrupt for 347000 pounds and Sir Isaac Newton would end up losing 20000 pounds after initially exiting for a profit but re-entering the company due to FOMO.
He then came up with the famous line I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of the people.
In hindsight, the role the government played in fueling the South Sea bubble cannot be overlooked.
Government officials were bribed in helping facilitate the scheme and they would get shares handed to them.
So they were financially incentivized to fuel the bubble as much as possible and not put these guardrails in place that would protect the everyday investor to speculators that an investment in the company would be a sure thing, as the king was prepared to invest at £1000 a share.
Chancellor explains that the government's failure to protect the nation from the pitfalls of speculation was the single most important lesson to come out of the calamitous events of the South Sea episode.
Chancellor also points out that investors who were buying shares at 1000 pounds a share they just were not behaving rationally, as there was enough publicly available information that would suggest that the shares were severely overvalued.
Some investors put a fair value for the shares closer to 150 pounds based on the expected payments to come from the government.
By entering the, the investor then faced a poor risk-reward trade-off, therefore chasing a small potential gain and risking a larger and more certain loss.
Furthermore, we can then conclude that investors who purchase shares at such high levels were hoping for a greater fool, to pay an even higher price in the near future, rather than purchasing based on the underlying fundamentals.
The problem with this approach is that when the bubble pops, there is rarely going to be ready buyers, as the market is overwhelmed with sell orders by the speculators trying to get out before it's too late.
Many people think that they are smart enough to get out before the crash, but few have the foresight to make such accurate predictions, leaving many investors left with painful losses.
Let's transition here to discuss the second case study we'll be covering today, and that is the railway mania of 18.
An investor is much more interested in established business models that produce steady returns in the current state of affairs, more interested in preserving the capital they already have and generating income off of that investment.
On the other hand, speculators are much more interested in capturing a capital gain and, whether they realize it or not, are less interested in capital preservation and generating income today.
Inventions and novelties have always excited speculators.
In the 1690s, it was the diving machine, fire engine, and burglar alarm companies.
In the 1720s, it was the financial alchemy generated by companies like South Sea.
It wasn't until the Industrial Revolution did we start to come across technologies that weren't nearly as limited in their application.
Starting in the late 18th century…
A number of innovations in the field of communications had very significant impacts on society.
First it was the canals, followed in succession by railways, motor cars radio aircraft, computers and, more recently, the internet.
Each of these technologies also attracted fervent attention from speculators, who ironically also contributed greatly to their successful establishment.
The canal age in Britain started with the completion of the Duke Bridgewater Canal in 1767, which ran around 30 miles long.
And over the following two decades, more than 1,000 miles of canals were constructed.
The first canals produced tremendous returns on capital, paid large dividends and enjoyed soaring share prices.
Furthermore, canals were beneficial to society as a whole due to lower transportation costs.
In the early 1790s, Speculation started to creep into this industry and the government passed 50 acts for new canals to be built, and speculation would hit its peak around 1793.
The canal media would come to an abrupt end with the recession in 1793 brought on by the outbreak of the French Revolutionary War.
Canal share prices collapsed and the investment returns on the new canals turned out to be abysmal in comparison to their predecessors.
By the turn of the century, the overall return on capital invested in canals went from a pre-mania level of 50 to around 5, as the gravity force of capitalism took hold.
But canals actually were not new.
As the Romans had built a, extended the benefits of water transportation to areas which had not previously enjoyed it.
As Chancellor explains, the advent of railways, on the other hand, represented a far more significant change in prevent cows from grazing and hens from laying eggs, that their poisonous fumes would kill birds and blacken the fleeces of sheep, and that their speeds of up to 15 mph would blow passengers to atoms.
Railways also faced criticism and opposition from canal owners and landowners, who feared losing the value of their assets.
When the Great Western Railway was proposed to connect London to Western England, both the University of Oxford and Eton College initially refused a connection.
But as they say, you cannot stop an idea whose time has come.
The first wave of railway excitement began with the opening of the Stockton and Darlington, but it faded quickly as an economic downturn.
Years later, the success of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway proved that steam locomotives were the future, reigniting public enthusiasm and setting off a second, far more powerful railway fever.
But it took several years for the public at large to and landlords realized that land lying adjacent to railway lines tended to rise in value.
Then journalists suddenly started to proclaim that railways were a revolutionary advancement in the history of mankind.
One man understood best how to direct the public's enthusiasm for railways to his own ends.
George Hudson, who was the chairman of the York and North Midland Railways.
He controlled over 1000 miles of railway more than a third of the total track and operation at the time, which might be why he was coined the Railway King.
Hudson closely associated himself with the advancement of railways and deliberately staged opening ceremonies to increase the public's interest as much as possible.
Hudson was the chairman of several railway companies and he managed these companies really in an unusual manner.
Company's accounts and records were kept to himself and he would update the accounting methods to his own liking and acted as if many business rules just didn't apply to him.
While he showcased personal extravagance and display on several occasions, he also cut quarters when it came to running his own operations.
For example, there was a fatal accident on the York and North Midland line and it turned out that he had employed an elderly train driver with defective eyesight in order to save on wages.
Because of his lower cost structure, he was able to pay higher prices to acquire other railways and distribute greater dividends to shareholders.
By late 1844, the economy was really starting to heat up.
Interest rates were at their lowest also fallen and railway revenues were rapidly rising.
And the three largest railway companies were paying dividends of 10 four times that of the prevailing interest rate.
As a result, the public's interest in the railway revolution was growing.
Meanwhile, the number of railway companies skyrocketed as the newspapers were flooded with advertisements for railway prospectuses.
The playbook by many of these firms was to retain the majority of these shares with insiders promote a small number of the shares to the public, creating a scarcity of the shares to allow them to get bid up to high prices.
If the promotion was successful, prices would get bid up high demand for shares would be oversubscribed and this would allow insiders to eventually offload their shares to the public to lock in substantial profits.
Many of the promoters of new railways appeared to only be interested in profiting for themselves.
One of the things that was unique about the railway mania was that it extended outside of the metro areas.
And similar to the South Sea story.
Part of what helped fuel the mania and speculation was the ability to use leverage, as banks provided loans against the collateral of railway shares.
In several cities, New stock exchanges were established for the trade of shares, and it was estimated that half a million transactions were processed daily by around 3000 stockbrokers.
One news article explained how the amount of business being done had never been seen before.
A government report published in June 1845 revealed the identity of 20000 speculators who had each subscribed for more than 2000 pounds worth of railway shares.
And naturally many who were on the list had contracted obligations that were well beyond their means.
Some didn't even have the intention of meeting the subsequent calls on the railway shares, simply hoping to sell the option to buy shares at a premium to someone else later down the line.
And others expected to flip their shares on the open market in early trading.
These speculators were known as the railway stags.
Although both the Times and The Economist accepted railway advertisements, they did warn the public about the corruption of the mania and the inevitability of a crash.
In particular, the newspapers attempted to draw the public's attention to the insupportable amount of capital that was required to finance the reckless extension of the railway system.
By June of 1845 there were more than 8000 miles of new railway under construction by the Board of Trade, which was four times the size of the existing railway system.
A pamphlet published in Manchester during the summer warned of an impending crisis, as workers were more interested in getting involved in the speculation rather than working on real things in the economy.
Once again, the old cry was raised that speculation was distracting people from lawful occupations.
There was concern that this speculation would be felt for years, as the industry was consuming the nation's capital resources for construction of railways.
One paper wrote to think or dream that the present mania will subsist without a crisis, the most severe ever experienced in this country would be to shut our eyes to all pacifism.
As long as the mania continued, Hudson remained a hero to the people, as he had literally gone from rags to riches and was a symbol of the get-rich-quick mentality that enthralled the nation.
He celebrated his success in August by purchasing a 12000-acre estate for nearly half a million pounds.
That amount of money, adjusted for inflation, would be worth something like $100 million today.
By the late summer of 1845, speculation was nearing its peak.
Foreign railways were projected all around the globe and over 100 railways were planned for Ireland.
In September, over 450 new schemes were registered and a single issue of the Railway Times contained over 80 pages of prospectus advertisements.
Even after the excitement of the mania cooled, the damage was already done because enormous amounts of capital had been committed and could not easily be reversed.
Railway projects kept demanding cash through share calls, forcing investors to keep paying even as share prices collapsed, which drained money from the broader economy.
Shortly after, the Bank of England decided to raise interest rates by half a percent.
Although the raise was small, it really signaled the end of the railway fiesta.
As economic conditions worsened in 1846 and 1847, Businesses failed, banks collapsed and panic spread throughout Britain's financial system.
Investors who had speculated during the boom suddenly found themselves legally obligated to fund projects that they no longer believed in, leading to bankruptcies, lawsuits and personal ruin.
The middle class was especially hit hard, with families losing savings homes and livelihoods as railway shares imploded.
By late 1860, severe that the Bank of England was forced to suspend its own rules to prevent a complete financial collapse.
Now that the bubble had popped, the railway king started to get more scrutiny.
It was discovered by investors that he had been propping up dividends by using investor capital and not the profits of the underlying business.
So, in essence, shareholders were sending him money and he was sending part of it right back as a dividend.
This, alongside other illusions, helped keep share prices inflated for longer than they would have otherwise.
As railway revenues declined and dividends were cut, Hudson's empire unraveled quickly.
There were accusations of false accounting, insider trading, self-dealing and political bribery, exposing the significant conflicts of interest at play.
It was estimated that Hudson embezzled around 70 million inflation-adjusted dollars.
Share prices of York and North Midland had fallen by two-thirds from its 1845 peak and was trading at a discount to its paid-up capital.
Railways had really lost their appeal, and the railway king had been dethroned.
But Hudson, of course, was not the only bad actor.
He was just an output of a broken system.
While other regions took necessary measures to prevent such manias, private enterprises were left unchecked in Great Britain.
The uncontrolled expansion of the railway system in the hands of semi-criminal entrepreneurs produced an economic catastrophe.
By January 1850, railway shares had declined from their peak by an average of 85 and the total value of all railway shares were less than half the capital expended on them.
Railway dividends averaged less than 2 of capital expended, and in the years that followed many companies could not even afford to pay a dividend.
Several railroads built in the 1840s produced very poor returns and were eventually bankrupted by the arrival of the automobile.
However, the results of the mania were not entirely negative.
With over 8000 benefits to society in the form of faster and cheaper transportation for passengers, raw materials and finished goods, and helped bring many jobs in the industry for the years ahead.
Now, this book by Chancellor was published back in the year 1999 and I think he makes an accurate comparison when he compared the railway mania to the tech bubble in the 1990s.
The railway mania is one of history's first examples of how a new technology does not necessarily bring good returns for the investor base at large.
If anything, it suggests that we should avoid investing in new technologies, especially when there's a lot of hype surrounding it and high levels of capital investment is pouring into the industry.
One of the big differences between the internet bubble and the railway mania was that the internet bubble didn't necessarily require a lot of capital to finance.
Many companies could just hire a few programmers, spin up a website and start promoting their ideas or paying for clicks to that website.
This helped enable a wave of internet startups, with the hope Chancellor loops in this quote at the end of the chapter, from none other than Bill Gates.
He said, gold rushes tend to encourage impetuous investments.
A few will pay off, but when the frenzy is behind us, we will look back incredulously at the wreckage of failed ventures and wonder who funded those companies?
What was going on in their minds?
Was it just mania at work?
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All right, back to the show.
To close out the episode, let's cover one more case study.
So in chapter nine, Chancellor covers the Japanese bubble economy of the 1980s.
Chancellor opens up this chapter by discussing this concept of Nehanjeron.
So this term roughly translates to the theory of the Japanese.
This concept ties into this idea that Japan is unique, and perceived differences between Japan and the West were sometimes invoked by the Japanese authorities in order to hinder the import of foreign goods.
For instance, and foreign rice.
It was even claimed that American skis were useless in Japan because the snow was different.
As you read about the history of the US and other countries, one common theme that I come across is that the West tends to be more individualistic than other countries.
This idea comes from how Western societies historically organized their economies, politics and social values around individual that prioritize individual rights, and economic systems that reward personal initiative in entrepreneurship.
By contrast, many non-Western societies, including Japan, evolved around collective structures where social harmony and group obligations often take precedence over individual choice.
In Chancellor's words, Japanese capitalism is in many respects the antithesis of the Western model.
Until the middle of the 19th century, Japan remained a feudal economy, closed to the outside world, with no tradition of legal rights for the individual.
In the years that followed, they borrowed selectively from the West, but the hierarchy of the feudal system still remained in place.
The peasant who had formerly bowed to the feudal lord they worked for.
And in exchange for their devotion and sacrifice, explorers were rewarded by their companies with lifetime employment and promotion according to their seniority.
Now, as someone who's lived in the US my whole life, reading about the Japanese economy is certainly interesting.
Some companies in Japan enjoy a privileged position, as they receive protection from foreign competition.
The Ministry of Finance guarded the financial sector and ensured that cheap loans were available to firms that were cash hungry and highly leveraged, and the capital would be raised from Japan's thrifty savers.
As interest rates were kept artificially low by these arrangements then companies, so returns for Japanese investors were rather poor.
Furthermore, the domestic consumer was similarly exploited by the Japanese system, as imports were restricted and the cost of everyday items were therefore higher.
The Japanese prided themselves on the belief that their system was less selfish and more stable than their Western counterparts.
They boasted that they thought long-term and that the West pursued only antitheticals to a state-directed economic system.
And after the stock market crash and bank collapses during the Great Depression, Japanese authorities were determined to never again tolerate such failures.
Nevertheless, speculation still came to Japan in the 1980s.
And, as Chancellor puts it here, it burrowed so deep inside the Japanese system that when it departed after a mere five years, the system wasn't ruins.
End quote.
For much of the 20th century the US was the dominant empire globally from an economic standpoint, but by the middle of the 1980s its position was threatened by the growing might of Japan.
Japan's industrial companies were deeply intertwined with new technologies and consumer electronics and a number of other fields, and its banks were the largest in the world when measured by assets and market value.
Japan was running a trade surplus and the US was running a trade deficit.
And this was partially funded by Japan's continued purchase of US treasury bills.
As we know, in 1971 we entered a new monetary system as the US broke the gold standard and the dollar was free floating.
During this time period, President Nixon criticized Japan for chronically undervaluing their currency in order to make their exports cheaper.
In 1980, Japan of their currency, with the hope of making Japan a financial center of the world, alongside London and New York.
In light of the deregulation happening, banks were able to offer what was referred to as token accounts that allowed customers to deposit cash and earn a competitive interest rate.
So Japanese companies started to supplement the regular income from their operations with interest earned on these accounts.
In 1985, 9 trillion yen was invested in such accounts, and that amount would triple four years later.
Chancellor refers to the financial engineering that Japanese companies used during this time period, as Zytec.
Zytec created a circular feedback loop.
As share prices rose, the ability which helped fuel share prices to rise even higher.
And this helped companies perform even more financial engineering, and so on and so forth, until the entire thing unravels.
More than half of the reported profits of the largest players were derived from financial engineering.
Companies were raising tremendous amounts of capital at low interest rates to increase these endeavors.
Another important piece of the Japanese bubble was property values.
Land holds a special place in the minds of Japanese people.
Its ownership continued to convey status in a society not long released from feudal servitude, and development of land was relatively scarce when compared to a country like the US.
There were also high capital gains taxes for short-term property gains, which encouraged owners to hold for the long-term.
Ironically, by discouraging the sale of land and creating an illiquid property market, the system actually encouraged land speculation.
Between 1956 and 1986, land prices increased by 5,000% while consumer prices only doubled.
To help further fuel the bubble, banks acted on the belief that land prices would never fall again.
So they provided loans against the collateral of the land rather than cash flows.
Additionally, the banks knew that, should things ever go badly, the government would likely be on the lookout to try and prevent a catastrophe from taking place.
In the mid-1980s, the US and Japan had opposing economic policies.
The US had relatively higher interest rates to keep inflation at bay, and Japan had a looser monetary policy.
This led to a stronger dollar and weaker yen, which helped Japanese companies ship more products overseas.
But in September 1985, the Plaza Accord was signed to correct the large trade imbalances globally.
This led to a sharp appreciation of the Japanese yen, and now, all of a sudden, Japanese goods in the international market were twice as expensive.
Economic conditions in Japan then worsened, which led to the Bank of Japan lowering interest rates to help stimulate the economy.
And then it just didn't take long for the market to just start roaring higher, as the Nikkei Index reached 18000 in the fall of 1986.
Against the backdrop of a rising market, the government launched a long-awaited flotation of NTT, the national telephone company, offering 200 months.
Nearly 10 million people applied for shares, even though the government had yet to announce the issue price.
Demand was so strong that the shares had to be distributed by a special lottery.
The shares went live in February 1987 and within weeks the share price had nearly tripled, valuing the company at over 200 times earnings.
The market cap was around 375 billion, which in inflation adjusted terms would make it over a trillion dollar company.
One of the reasons that the stock traded at such elevated levels was because the government was behind the public offering, and it was widely believed that the government just wouldn't allow the share price to fall.
In the public's eyes, betting on NTT was akin to hesitation.
Underneath the surface, Japanese politicians also had a vested interest in keeping the market going higher.
Reaching the heights of the political sphere was expensive, as one needed to pay for favors and buy votes.
It was estimated that the annual expense to maintain a major political position was around 3 million.
This was partially funded for a lot of politicians by the stock market's gains.
So instead of politicians helping keep speculation in check, they helped enable it.
During the late 1980s, Japanese share prices would increase three times faster than corporate earnings, and the earnings themselves were inflated due to financial engineering.
The Tokyo stock market flaunted some of the most overvalued shares in history.
The textile sector traded at 103 times earnings.
Services companies traded at 112 times earnings and fishery and forestry firms traded at 319 times earnings.
Western investors believed that such values were not justified and had reduced their stakes from the mid-1980s onwards.
There were several explanations as to why such valuations were maybe justified.
Some argued that accounting practices understated real earnings and cross-shareholdings inflated reported PE measures.
What also helped lift share prices was that interest rates were artificially low and the rising yen discouraged investors from taking their money abroad.
So they didn't have many alternatives, which led to a scarcity of sellers of Japanese stocks.
It seemed that nothing could stop share prices from rising.
When the emperor died in 1989, the market went up.
When a small earthquake hit Tokyo six months later, prices continued to rise.
Alongside the stock market.
Japanese property prices climbed on an ever-increasing supply of credit and as they climbed, many workers were being priced out of being able to buy a home, even a small apartment.
Homebuyers were then forced to take out multi-generational 100-year mortgages.
By 1990, the total Japanese property market was valued at over 2,000 trillion yen.
This was over four times the real estate value of the entire United States.
The grounds of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo was estimated to be worth more than the entire real estate value of California.
Property values were simply beyond levels that would be considered unprecedented.
Helping fuel the bubble, the Ministry of Finance met with the four top brokers in the country and they ordered them to make a market for NTT shares and keep the Nikkei average above 21000.
The hope was that the broker's biggest clients would feel comfort, knowing that share prices would not fall substantially, hopefully encouraging them to invest more.
During the second half of the 1980s, 8 million new investors entered the market, taking the total number of Japanese investors to 22 million.
New investors were encouraged by brokers to speculate in the market and were practically never handed a sell recommendation.
Brokers took advantage of the Japanese population because they knew they tended to behave in herds and tend to investing decisions.
The four brokers, which accounted for more than half of the overall trading volume, worked together to determine which stocks should be pushed to customers.
And for the major clients that needed tended to or even needed losses recovered in short order.
The brokers would be sure to make up for those at the expense of those who weren't insiders.
The booming equity and property markets helped bring about a booming economy as well.
Chancellor referred to it as the new golden age.
People felt rich, so consumer spending was strong.
The strong end helped stimulate demand for imports.
Low income taxes gave consumers more disposable income.
Loans were refinanced at low interest rates and consumer debt was hitting new highs.
Since I've been getting more into golf lately in my personal life not to say that I'm really any good it was fun to read about the golf club membership craze of all things that was happening in Japan during this period.
Golf was played by nearly a third of all salarymen, so it was really an.
Different ranks accorded to clubhouses allowed members to display their hierarchic status, while businessmen, politicians and bureaucrats used their time at the club to expand their network, which played an integral part of their social and professional life.
Since golf clubs were owned by their members.
When land prices soared in the 1980s, the property rights of a was launched and it was based on the average membership price at different clubs.
Given how illiquid the property market was, the index served as a good indicator of the state of the market.
From a base of 100, the index reached 160 at the end of 1985 and by the spring of 1990 it would reach over 1000.
The cost of joining Tokyo's leading country club was around $2.7 million.
And over 20 clubs cost over $1 million to join.
So not only was a golf club membership something to use for networking and showcasing your social status, but it in itself was also a speculative vehicle.
Banks even provided margin loans of up to 90 against the.
As the Japanese bubble was nearing its peak, it was starting to cause concern within some circles of society.
One growing concern was the growing wealth inequality.
The fortunes of the richest fifth of the population quadrupled and the bottom fifth of society's wealth actually declined.
The bubble was seen as eroding the work ethic by severing the connection between labor and reward.
As 1989 drew to a close, the Nikkei index was approaching 40,000, up 27% on the year.
The PE ratio of the Nikkei was 80 times trailing earnings.
The market yielded just 0.38% in dividends and sold for six times book value.
But in 1990 the governor of the Bank of Japan was replaced by a career central banker who boasted in public that he never owned a share in the market.
He made it his personal mission to prick the bubble.
He ordered for a raise in interest rates as the Nikkei reached its peak.
And from there, the market started its descent.
And the Bank of Japan went on to raise interest rates five more times to 6 to try and bring down property prices.
With a yield on long-term bonds of 7 and a dividend yield well under 1 for the stock market, there was just nothing left to keep valuations so high.
Authorities did their best still to try and manage the decline.
Margin requirements were lowered.
Authorities ordered brokers to purchase stocks when the Nikkei fell below 20000, and then margin requirements were lowered again.
In the midst of the decline, frauds were uncovered and overly leveraged institutions went under as one domino after another fell.
For example, one golf club was raided by police after having sold 60000 memberships instead of the 2000 they were authorized to sell.
The dream that Tokyo would emerge as a global financial capital declined along with share prices and the Japanese economy headed towards a recession.
Enormous capex during the good times saddled the country with excess productive capacity and falling asset values, led to declining consumer confidence and spending.
By late 1992, property prices had fallen by 60% from their peak.
Interest rates were then cut to try and undo the tremendous damage and would hit an all-time low of 05 in 1995 and 025 in 1998.
But low interest rates failed to bring the market back to life.
In 1989, the market peaked out around 39,000 and it wouldn't reach that level again until 2024.
That's 35 years later.
As Keynes observed during the Great Depression, in deflationary conditions, monetary policy was no more effective than pushing on a string.
Falling property values led to a banking crisis, as values of collateral fell and customers were in a hurry to pull their remaining cash out of banks.
The environment in Japan rhymed of that with the Great Depression.
Nine years into the collapse of the bubble, Japan teetered on the brink of systemic collapse, as its banking system was weighed down with bad debts.
The story of the Japanese bubble, along with the other bubbles outlined in the book, deliver several lessons that all of us could take away.
Probably the most important one is the belief that the market risk, or the downside, can be eliminated, so infinite prices can be paid.
Throughout the late 1980s, skeptics were told that the government would not allow share prices to fall When the bubble collapsed.
A few years later, this deception was exposed.
We saw a similar theme in the South Sea bubble, when British shareholders believed that the government backing would protect them from losses.
Most importantly, it's critical not to let your emotions overtake your decision-making when you find yourself caught in the bubble.
When it feels like share prices can go nowhere but up, the market can feel more stable and durable than it actually is because we're anchored in the recent past.
The Japanese bubble showcased that markets can detach from fundamentals for several years, and we shouldn't trick ourselves into thinking that this can continue forever.
Another takeaway from studying bubbles from the past is the fraud and deception that takes place beneath the surface the bubble, and make things really look better than they are.
It isn't until after the bubble has burst do you tend to see the fraud and deception exposed.
And by then it's too late to get out, because the insiders realized before you did when it was the best time to do so.
The final takeaway is that the bigger the bubble, the longer it can take for things to normalize.
The Japanese bubble is a good example of how destructive a bubble can be, With many stocks trading at north of 100 times earnings.
It creates a huge level of capital misallocation and leverage that took several years to clean up.
While each bubble has its own story, each are driven by many of the same human traits, such as greed fear, overconfidence and the belief that this time is different.
Studying episodes like the South Sea Bubble, the Railway Mania and Japan's 1989 Collapse helps us recognize when speculation crosses the line, so we can protect our hard-earned capital by staying grounded in fundamentals and disciplined when enthusiasm is at its loudest.
So with that, thank you for tuning into today's episode on Devil Take the Hindmost by Edward Chancellor.
I really hope you enjoyed it, and I hope to see you again next week.
Thanks for listening to TIP.
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