Andrew Ross Sorkin on 1929 Wall Street Suicides

David Rubenstein: "So, there's images or stories about people jumping out of windows on Wall Street. Did that that really happened?"

Andrew Ross Sorkin: "So yes and no. They absolutely jumped. There were real people who jumped. And the more interesting component part of that question is that if you actually look statistically at suicides in New York in the fall of 1929, it was actually flat to possibly lower than the number of suicides in 1928. And so there is a view that sort of overdone. Having said that, the suicides that did take place were typically related to the crisis. Meaning a lot of the people who work were killing themselves it was a function of losing all the money, that during that period. And I'll tell you a personal story not told in the book. Which is that my grandfather, Sidney Sorkin, who's no longer alive, used to tell us his story. He was a messenger boy down in the exchange during that period with his, with his older brother. And he would tell a story about how he was there, this is late October, November 1929, and how he watched somebody jump out a window. And it had such a, impact on him personally that for his 92 years on this planet, he never bought a share of stock again. He always would tell us, that he thought that the stock market was a casino.

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