"A speculator is a man who observes the future, and acts before it occurs."
"If you get all the facts, your judgment can be right; if you don't get all the facts, it can't be right."
"I made my money by selling too soon."
"When good news about the market hits the front page of the New York Times, sell."
"Never follow the crowd."
"Never pay the slightest attention to what a company president ever says about his stock."
"The main purpose of the stock market is to make fools of as many men as possible."
"If a speculator is correct half of the time, he is hitting a good average. Even being right 3 or 4 times out of 10 should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on the ventures where he is wrong."
Bernard Mannes
Baruch
(August 18,
1870 to June 20, 1965) was an
American financier, stock market
speculator, statesman, and
presidential advisor. After his
success in business, he devoted his
time toward advising Democratic
presidents Woodrow Wilson and
Franklin D. Roosevelt on economic
matters. He is well known for having
coined the term "Cold War" in 1947
to describe relations between the
United States and the Soviet Union
from the mid-1940s to the early
1990s.
Early life,
education, and career
Bernard Baruch was born in Camden,
South Carolina to Simon and Belle
Baruch. He was the second of four
sons. His father Dr. Simon Baruch
(1840-1921) was a German Jewish
immigrant who came to the United
States in 1855. He became a surgeon
on the staff of Confederate general
Robert E. Lee during the American
Civil War and a pioneer in physical
therapy. His mother's Sephardic
Jewish ancestors came to New York as
early as the 1690s and were in the
shipping business. In 1881 the
family moved to New York City, and
Bernard Baruch graduated from the
City College of New York eight years
later. He eventually became a broker
and then a partner in the firm of A.
A. Housman and Company. With his
earnings and commissions he bought a
seat on the New York Stock Exchange
for $18,000 (about $500000 in
today's dollars). There he amassed a
fortune before the age of thirty via
speculation in the sugar market. In
1903 he had his own brokerage firm
and had gained the reputation of
"The Lone Wolf on Wall Street"
because of his refusal to join any
other financial house. By 1910, he
had become one of Wall Street's
financial leaders. A residential
building is named after him on the
Stony Brook University campus.
Presidential Adviser: First World
War
During World War I he advised
President Woodrow Wilson on national
defense, during which time he became
the chairman of the War Industries
Board. (His stenographer was the
then-unknown teenager Billy Rose).
Baruch played a major role in
turning American industry to
full-scale war production. At the
war's conclusion, he was seen with
President Wilson at the Versailles
Peace Conference. He never ran for
elective office. He supported
numerous Democratic congressmen with
$1000 annual campaign donations, and
became a popular figure on Capitol
Hill. Every election season he would
contribute from $100 to $1000 to
numerous Democratic candidates.
Under President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt's "New Deal", Baruch was a
member of the "Brain Trust" and
helped form the National Recovery
Administration (NRA).
Presidential Adviser: Second World
War
During World War II he was a
consultant on economic issues and
proposed a number of measures
including:
A pay-as-you-earn witholding tax
plan
Rent ceilings
Stockpiling of commodities of rubber
and tin
A synthetic rubber program to
replace natural rubber; there was
not enough of this strategic
material.
Baruch argued that in modern war
there was little room for free
enterprise. He said Washington must
control all aspects of the economy
and that both business and unions
must be subservient to the nation's
security interest. Furthermore,
price controls were essential to
prevent inflation and to maximize
military power per dollar. He wanted
labor to be organized to facilitate
optimum production. Baruch believed
labor should be cajoled, coerced,
and controlled as necessary: a
central government agency would
orchestrate the allocation of labor.
He supported what was known as a
"work or fight" bill. Baruch
advocated the creation of a
permanent superagency similar to his
old Industries Board. Thus Baruch
proposed to freeze economic freedom
during war in order to preserve it
for peace. Obviously his approach
enhanced the role of civilian
businessmen and industrialists in
determining what was needed and who
would produce it. Baruch's ideas
were largely adopted, with James
Byrnes appointed to carry them out.
During the war Baruch remained a
trusted advisor and confidant of
President Roosevelt, and during the
height of the war, the President
spent an entire month as a guest at
Baruch's South Carolina estate, in
1944.
In 1946 he was appointed the United
States representative to the United
Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC)
by President Harry S. Truman. As a
member of the newly created UNAEC,
Baruch suggested the elimination of
nuclear weapons after implementation
of a system of international
controls, inspections, and
punishment for violations.
On Friday, June 14, 1946, Baruch -
widely seen by many scientists and
some members of Truman's
administration as unqualified for
the task - presented his Baruch
Plan, a modified version of the
Acheson-Lilienthal plan, to the
UNAEC, which proposed international
control of then-new atomic energy.
The Soviet Union rejected Baruch's
proposal as unfair given the fact
that the U.S. already had nuclear
weapons, instead proposing that the
U.S. eliminate its nuclear weapons
before a system of controls and
inspections was implemented. A
stalemate ensued.
Park Bench Statesman
Baruch was a high profile public
figure, and did his best thinking in
Washington D.C's Lafayette Park and
in New York City's Central Park. It
was not uncommon to see him
discussing government affairs with
other people while sitting on a park
bench; this became his trademark. It
was said that his office was a park
bench near the White House.
In 1960, on his ninetieth birthday,
a commemorative park bench in
Lafayette Park across from the White
House was dedicated to him. He
continued to advise on international
affairs until his death on Sunday,
June 20, 1965, in New York City, at
the age of ninety-four.
