Trade groups is another example. One example of a trade group is the Stock Exchange. The first stock exchange in the United States, not the first in the world, was founded in 1792, and they signed an agreement, which is still, I'll show you, that's the actual agreement. "We, the subscribers, brokers for the purchase and sale of public stock, do hereby solemnly promise and pledge ourselves to each other that we will not buy or sell from this day for any person whatsoever any kind of public stock, at a less rate than one-quarter of one percent commission on the specie value, and that we will give preference to each other in our negotiations." That's how it says? It basically, it's a price-fixing agreement. It sounds like fishing to me. They don't want to compete with each other, and in order to prevent someone undercutting them. They also promised not to trade with any other broker that doesn't sign this agreement. Now, the New York Stock Exchange website has this summary of the agreement. At the heart of the Buttonwood Agreement was the need for fairness, responsibility, and trust. Wait a minute. We just read the whole agreement. It's not there. Maybe at the heart, they say at the heart. So, in their hearts, the people who signed the Buttonwood Agreement thought that they were helping deal with fairness, responsibility, and trust. But, basically, it's trust that you won't charge a lower price than I am. So, is collusion as we'd call it. But, this sounds to me a little bit whitewashing it. They mentioned William Duer, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, had defaulted on his debt, causing a brief panic in the New York financial markets. That was the crash of 1792. The first big stock market crash in the United State. So, the importance of being able to trust those with whom you deal. William Duer was a man of questionable ethics, who borrowed heavily to buy into the stock market bubble, deceiving others, and manipulating. He was a controversial guy. He was one of the rich men of the time, and he did things like have liveried servants. He had his servants like a small army, they wore military uniforms. This is unAmerican. Not many people, the butler comes, he's wearing a tuxedo, right? But, there's an older European that you have all of them wearing uniforms, as if you had a private army. He almost got tarred and feathered in 1792, that's what they used to do with controversial figures. So, the New York Stock Exchange was a monopoly. It was enforcing commission. The commission is what you pay for the service of having your shares sold or being able to buy a share through a broker. So, in the United States finally outlawed fixed commissions, in took until 1975, long after 1792. By the way, Yale College people were involved. President Ford, Ray Garrett were involved in doing this. The Big Bang of London was a similar thing under Margaret Thatcher, abolished fixed commissions to eliminate the "elitist old boys network." By the way, the Deutsche Boerse, they're still trying to combine into a bigger group. The Deutsche Boerse, which is the German stock exchange, attempted to buy the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq as well but failed. But, the Intercontinental Exchange, ICE bought New York Stock Exchange. Now, the Deutsche Boerse is trying to buy the London Stock Exchange, is all this effort to combine in, but they don't have fixed commissions, so it has a lesser impact.
