Threadneedle Street

Land may be the source of all wealth to the mind of a settler in a new country.

To those whose working day was passed in Threadneedle Street and Lombard Street, on the floor of the Stock Exchange, and in the Bank of England, land appears to bear no relation at all to wealth, and the allegation that the whole surplus of production goes automatically to landowners is obviously untrue.

George's political economy was old-fashioned or absurd, and his solution of the problem of poverty could not withstand the simplest criticism.

Taxation to extinction of the rent of English land would only affect a small fraction of England's wealth.

So, the oil money is offshore, and the refinery now belongs to a hedge fund.

Which brings us to Threadneedle Street.

Underneath the Bank of England, there are 31 tonnes of Venezuelan gold.

It's been there since 2008, for the same reason that a lot of developing countries keep gold in London.

Rebuilding is a separate question, and a much larger number.

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction puts the direct physical damage at $37 billion, $24 billion in buildings, $13 billion in infrastructure, and that figure doesn't yet include the cost of reconstruction, so it will rise.

The gold under Threadneedle Street is worth about $4 billion, and it is appreciated by more than $2 billion while the argument about who owns it has been going on.

So, while lawyers in Delaware and London argue about who is entitled to sell or store Venezuela's assets, Venezuela is dealing with what it is like to live in a country whose state has stopped working.

Exactly.

So initially this bank operated out in Grocers Hall in the poultry for the first 40 years and then moved in 1734 to a site in Threadneedle Street, which is still famously where it is located now.

And known as the old lady of Threadneedle Street at certain times.

I think also thinking about what the city looked like at this point.

After the fire, we talked about in our last episode, the city was rebuilt, but it was never quite the same.

It was in the same happy spirit of humor that he was to meet all the adventures of his future life.

He was born at Milk Street in the city of London in the year 1478, and was educated at St. Anthony's School in Threadneedle Street, close to where the Bank of England now stands.

St. Anthony's was a free grammar school, where he received an excellent grounding in Latin from one of the few born schoolmasters of that time.

It was the custom in those days to send promising boys, the sons of gentlemen or of nobles, to serve as pages in the houses of great ecclesiastics.

This crowding flight of happy and fortunate rich people,—every great city was as if a crawling ant hill had suddenly taken wing,--was the bright side of the opening phase of the new epoch in human history Beneath that brightness was a gathering darkness A deepening dismay If there was a vast development of production There was also a huge destruction of values These glaring factories working night and day These glittering new vehicles swinging noiselessly along the roads These flights of dragonflies That swooped and soared and circled in the air Were indeed no more than the brightness of lamps and fires That gleam out When the world sinks towards twilight and the Night Between these high lights Accumulated disaster Social catastrophe The coal mines were manifestly doomed to closure At no very distant date The vast amount of capital invested in oil was becoming unsaleable Millions of coal miners Steel workers upon the old lines Vast swarms of unskilled Or under skilled labourers In innumerable occupations Were being flung out of employment by the superior efficiency of the new machinery The rapid fall in the cost of transit was destroying High land values at every centre of population The value of existing House property Had become problematical Gold was undergoing headlong depreciation All the securities upon which the credit of the world rested Were slipping and sliding Banks were tottering The stock exchanges were scenes of Feverish panic This was the reverse of the Spectacle These were the black and monstrous under-consequences of the leap into the air.

There is a story of a demented London stockbroker running into Threadneedle Street and tearing off his clothes as he ran.

"'The Steel Trust is scrapping the whole of its plant!' he shouted.

'The State Railways are going to scrap all their engines! Everything's going to be scrapped—everything! Come and scrap the Mint, you fellows; come and scrap the Mint!'" In the year 1955 the suicide rate for the United States of America quadrupled any previous record: there was an enormous increase also in violent crime throughout the world.

Told you so a hundred times, but go ahead.

"My dear Mr. Holmes, my friend Mr. Alexander Holder of the banking firm of Holder & Stevenson of Threadneedle Street informs me that you recently were of great assistance to him in a highly confidential matter."

Oh, wonder what

"I'm therefore taking the liberty of calling upon you at 10:00 tomorrow morning, Tuesday, in the hope of obtaining your assistance and advice.

This is very much off-piece to come and have a chat with us, which is more sort of the li- the layman.

Um, so it was a sort of a real privilege really to be having insight into h- the conversations that are happening on, on Wall Street and on Threadneedle Street in London and stuff like that.

Um, you know, it's, it's a bit more demure.

It's not as exciting as sometimes we, we have, um, but it, it's very much how sort of these big, slow-moving asset allocators think about the world, for better or for worse.