Thank you for posting this -- I had partly read this book but had to return it to the library many years ago. I have been meaning to finish it for a long time.
The first few chapters are heavy going, they deal with details of Morgan's various activities that seem unimportant in relationship to the big picture, now.
I thought it interesting that he observed that the Patent system, in conjunction with large corporations, probably acted to retard the "useful Arts and Sciences" not advance them; this was written in 1913. Hayek observed the same in "The Road to Serfdom" written in the 1940s.
Other things that caught my eye:
Why do municipalities so uniformly offer bonds through the large investment bank middlemen ? While a new town with no credit might need that, large and established cities such as New York, Chicago, and etc, or even large and established corporations, should be able to deal directly with the public.
Why do the mergers and acquistions of large corporations so often require the raising of emmense amounts of money, merely to effect the transfer of ownership ? Billions are borrowed in bonds or sale of new stock so HP can buy Compaq or something; those billions are not destined to build computer factories, chip facilities, or pay engineers; somehow they are necessary just to swap who is in the corner office. Is the economy really benfited by this ? Would be detrimental if the purchasers had to trade something they actually had, or if the sellers had to agree to accept payment on a plan ?
For a good writter interested in the financial issues of our times, a great project would be to take "Other People's Money" as an outline, and simply re-write it chapter for chapter, replacing all the old examples with current ones.
