Bachmann quoted today by MSNBC's First Read:
"You see, there's a reason our Founding Fathers decided to establish our political capital in a different city than our financial capital, because it's time for us to reaffirm the wisdom of that decision by getting Washington D.C., out of free markets. And I'm running for president of the United States because I understand the difference between free markets and a Bernie Madoff style of government."Personally, I blame George Washington for Internet porn, even though most experts blame Jefferson.
Okay I just googled it. Even when her dates aren't that off she's flat out wrong. The NYSE was established in the early 1800s in NYC. So, age wise, it's possible that one of the Founding Fathers had a hand in all of this 35 years after the Revolutionary War. But according to the history of the NYSE, there's no such mention.
The origin of the NYSE can be traced to May 17, 1792, when the Buttonwood Agreement was signed by 24 stock brokers outside of 68 Wall Street in New York under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street.[8] On March 8, 1817, the organization drafted a constitution and renamed itself the "New York Stock & Exchange Board." Anthony Stockholm was elected the Exchange's first president.Then we look to the history of our nation's capital and the capitol building.
Before 1791, the federal government had no permanent site. The early Congresses met in eight different cities: Philadelphia, Baltimore, Lancaster, York, Princeton, Annapolis, Trenton, and New York City. The subject of a permanent capital for the government of the United States was first raised by Congress in 1783; it was ultimately addressed in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution (1787), which gave the Congress legislative authority over "such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States. ..."So at the time of the Founding Fathers we had no set city where Congress met. It wasn't until 1787 that they picked DC for the Congress. And it wasn't until 1800 that they moved the capital to DC. And if you really get into the details, then the origin of the NYSE can be traced back to 1792, after DC was already chosen as the capital. But the folks who founded the stock exchange were all stock brokers - there doesn't appear to be a political hand in all of this.
The real question is whether the Founding Fathers intentionally chose DC as our capital because they wanted to have it separate than our financial capital. And there's a great explanation here of the back and forth in choosing the capital, and none of it has anything to do with making the financial capital a different place.
