Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection via/imago images/Everett Collection
Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection via/imago images/Everett Collection

Ideas

The Lesson of 1929

Debt is the almost singular through line behind every major financial crisis.

First published in The Atlantic on October 14, 2025.

by Andrew Ross Sorkin, The Atlantic
October 16, 2025 | reading time: 15 Min.

Charles Mitchell strode up the steps of 55 Wall Street, determined to project his usual sense of confidence and certitude. It had been a crushing afternoon. As he returned to his office, he knew that the eyes of New York were on him—everyone from the traders in the street to his own secretary was assessing his gait and searching his face, trying to read meaning in every twitch, every line, every wrinkle.

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