– Will We Never Learn? 1840’s Gold Rush Edition (ZeroHedge, Feb 25, 2014):
1840’s Gold Rush or 2014 Dot-Com 2.0?
Despite the amazingly high cost of living and the extraordinary opportunities for frittering away money, everyone in early San Francisco was supremely confident that he would soon be able to return home with an incalculable amount of [wealth].
Everything was conceived on a vast scale, and there was always plenty of cash available for any scheme that might be proposed, no matter how impossible or bizarre it seemed. No one hesitated to borrow money…
-The Barbary Coast (describing the gold rush)