Jay Gould
Jay, one of the robber barons of the 19th century, was a leading railroad developer and speculator. He makes this list not so much for his everyday sleazy business practices but because of his attempt to corner the gold market in 1869, causing the Black Friday Panic, regarded then as a serious financial crisis.
Working with James Fisk, they began to buy gold, hoping that by cornering the market the price increase would weaken the U.S. dollar. This is turn would lead foreign merchants to buy more wheat because a weaker dollar would make it cheaper. Fisk and Gould would then handle the shipping of that wheat — remember Gould’s a railroad guy.
Gould tried to enlist President Grant in his plot — having the government involved was critical, because the price of gold would only rise if a major gold holder, such as the U.S. Treasury, didn’t dump a lot of it on the market. But Grant and the treasury figured out what Gould was up to, and so started selling gold, causing a dramatic price drop. The result was a panic on Wall Street, causing an across the board decline in all stocks. Gould and Fisk were stopped and a larger disaster was averted, but again he has to be looked at in terms of what he tried to do even though he wasn’t successful — profit for himself at the expense of the country.
