The Only Closed Economy Is the World Economy

The U.S. economy grew substantially in the 1980s and ‘90s. Not surprisingly, employment on Wall Street surged in concert with this broad economic boom.

As a Presbyterian minister explained it in 1901, “Wall Street is one of the longest streets in the world. It does not begin at the foot of Trinity Church … and end at the East River, as many suppose. It reaches through all of our American cities and across the sea.” All businesses are formed on the proverbial Main Streets of the world; to grow they require intrepid investment, so Wall Street only succeeds insofar as it brings investors and promising businesses together. Wall and Main are joined at the hip as it were.