Joseph S. Moore is a historian, author, and investor who spent a decade reading nearly every piece of financial advice published in America over the past 300 years, testing those lessons himself, and distilling them into his HarperCollins book How to Get Rich in American History, selected by Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Grant for their Next Big Idea Club.
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3:00 — Joseph's working-class South Carolina roots: mother born into a home with no flush toilet, father's family led the famous Gastonia mill strike in the 1920s, grew up in a household that voted communist.
5:00 — Bogumil shares his parallel experience growing up in communist Poland and watching the country transform after embracing free markets.
8:00 — The church basement class that saved Joseph from the 2008 crisis: bought a house as a grad student, a Dave Ramsey budgeting class revealed the danger, sold the house one week before the market froze.
11:00 — The American Dream: people have declared it dead since the 1670s. Joseph introduces "Big Woe" — the despair industrial complex of journalists, politicians, and academics incentivized to sell doom.
17:00 — Upward mobility data: in the 1800s, 20-30% moved from bottom to middle class; today, 60% escape the bottom, 10% go all the way to the top. "We have more economic mobility than we've ever had."
23:00 — Dismantling financial shibboleths: compound interest only recently became powerful (people didn't live long enough), stocks didn't reliably beat bonds until after WWII, real estate stayed flat for a century in most cities.
31:00 — Old ideas in new packaging: latte factor advice dates to the 1800s, crypto mirrors 10,000 self-issued currencies before the Civil War ("all self-issued currencies eventually go to zero"), Airbnb reimagines the oldest mortgage payoff strategy.
37:00 — Fast time vs. slow time: most of life is lived in slow time — the daily decisions about career, marriage, savings that determine whether you can seize opportunities when fast time arrives. Story of Norman McGee buying foreclosed homes during the Depression.
42:00 — Women as unsung financial heroes throughout American history. Agnes Taylor, a beat cop's wife, paid off a New York brownstone by renting rooms. "Capitalism is a team sport. Marriage is a superpower."
51:00 — Hope as a financial asset: CFPB studies found a positive attitude plus saving habit outpredicted income and inheritance for financial wellness.
56:00 — FIRE movement as the "crossfit of personal finance" — financially independent people throughout history only thrived when they found meaningful work to do.
1:04:00 — Generational wealth doesn't last: 90% of top 1%'s grandchildren are not wealthy. "Tutors outperform trust funds." Human capital is 30x the value of the stock market.
1:09:00 — Joseph's definition of success: a great marriage, raising good kids, getting good enough at something that people trust you. "The money could go away and I'd have all those other things."
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