Other People's Money, and How the Bankers Use ItBrandeis, Louis Dembitz
History
Other People's Money, and How the Bankers Use It
Brandeis, Louis Dembitz
Banks and banking -- United States; Finance -- United States
Such success as has already been attained is largely due to the unpaid
educational work of leading progressive newspapers. But the educational
work to be done must not be confined to teaching “the people”--the
buyers of the bonds. Municipal officials and legislators have quite as
much to learn. They must, first of all, study salesmanship. Selling
bonds to the people is a new art, still undeveloped. The general
problems have not yet been worked out. And besides these problems
common to all states and cities, there will be, in nearly every
community, local problems which must be solved, and local difficulties
which must be overcome. The proper solution even of the general
problems must take considerable time. There will have to be many
experiments made; and doubtless there will be many failures. Every
great distributor of merchandise knows the obstacles which he had to
overcome before success was attained; and the large sums that had to be
invested in opening and preparing a market. Individual concerns have
spent millions in wise publicity; and have ultimately reaped immense
profits when the market was won. Cities must take their lessons from
these great distributors. Cities must be ready to study the problems
and to spend prudently for proper publicity work. It might, in the end,
prove an economy, even to allow, on particular issues, where necessary,
a somewhat higher interest rate than bankers would exact, if thereby
a direct market for bonds could be secured. Future operations would
yield large economies. And the obtaining of a direct market for city
bonds is growing ever more important, because of the huge increase in
loans which must attend the constant expansion of municipal functions.
In 1898 the new municipal issues aggregated $103,084,793; in 1912,
$380,810,287.
SAVINGS BANKS AS CUSTOMERS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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