7 Real People Who Singlehandedly Screwed Entire Economies

The stock market is even more powerful than you realize. Which is saying something, right? Much like Han Solo is pretty sure he can imagine infinite money, you believe you know the world's combined wealth is mighty. But did you know a lot of Traditional Upstanding Stock Market Business is simply rich people gambling? And did you know individual rich people, regular people, and even children have steered the entire world economy into a ditch more times than your history teacher can count?

On this week's episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by Gaby Dunn for an adventure through modern risk-takers, historical bet-losers, and the creepy way wealthier people are keeping you unaware of the whole thing. They'll rediscover Scotland's canal through Panama. They'll watch entire stock exchanges and currencies collapse because of one guy. And they'll leave you with ways you can be just as powerful as those mysterious masters of the universe if you think a little bit more about where your money lives.

Footnotes:

pre-order the Bad With Money book!

Bad With Money: "A Mysterious And Unknowable Force (aka the Stock Market)"

Bad With Money: "This Thing We All Made Up Together (aka Cryptocurrency)"

6 People Who Single Handedly Screwed Entire Economies (Cracked)

6 Random Nobodies (Who Secretly Run The World) (Cracked)

The 5 Most Diabolical Crimes Planned and Executed by Kids (Cracked)

Black Wednesday 20 years on: how the day unfolded (The Guardian)

How the Flash Crash Trader's $50 Million Fortune Vanished (Bloomberg)

Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street (Wired)

The Copper King's Precipitous Fall (Smithsonian)

The Panic Of 1893 (Ohio History Central)