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Joseph P. Kennedy

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19
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2017-04-19
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2017-04-19
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  1. “So he realizes this while he's working at Hayden Stone, he's still trading stocks of his own, he still has the two real estate companies, and then he starts yet another side business. And this time he starts producing films. So he uses his position at Hayden Stone to meet people in Hollywood that are trying to raise money because Hollywood's going through a massive technological change and it's going from silent films to what they call talkies, which is just a term for the movies we know now where there's actually sound and you can hear what the people are saying. And it sounds interesting or funny to us 100 years later, but this was a huge technical achievement that they had overcome. And usually huge technical achievements cost a lot of money. So he's using his position at this brokerage house to make these contacts.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “And so this is what he figures out. He's like, okay, I'm going to take what I learned from Stone and Hayden and I'm going to apply it to a different sector altogether. Back to the book. Fortunately, there was such a sector and it was thriving. Kennedy had found the perfect vehicle for his ambitions as a banker and financier, the picture business. And what they mean about the picture business is Hollywood movies.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Joseph Kennedy's appointment at Hayden Stone solidified his identification with the Boston business community. He lived in a suburb, dressed in tailored suits, wore custom made shirts, and drove to the office instead of taking the streetcar. So now, just to give you a little background, this is in his late 20s, and now he's finally in a position where he feels he can make at least a million dollars. Joseph P. Kennedy was a good father and a caring one, but he had seen little of his family during his years at Fort River. That pattern did not change significantly with the end of the war and with his first year at Hayden Stone. This is a really important part, too. He had taken the position at Hayden Stone not because he wanted to spend his life trading stocks, but because it was the only one offered to him.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Eddie Moore was the perfect compliment to Joe. He respected him, followed his instructions, kept his mouth shut, appeared to enjoy playing second fiddle, and got the job done. The two would work together in Boston, Hollywood, New York, Washington, and London for the next thirty years. Wherever Kennedy would set up headquarters, there was an office for more. Their relationship was so close that the Senator Joseph P. Kennedy's last son, Edward Moore Kennedy, which is the future senator who just passed away a few years ago, is actually named after Eddie Moore.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “While employed by Hayden Stone, he continued, as he had since graduation, to make money on the side by buying and selling real estate through old colony realty and now a new entity, Fenway Building Trust, which he had set up with Eddie Moore. So now he has two real estate companies in addition to a full time job And he's still trading stocks on his own as well.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Kennedy remained at Four River through the winter and spring of nineteen nineteen, waiting for a new assignment, but none was forthcoming. The boom in shipbuilding did not survive the coming of peace. Bowing to the inevitable and no doubt both restless and anxious to move on after twenty months in the same place, Joseph P. Kennedy tendered his resignation.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Kennedy was given the task of converting shipyard dormitories into infirmaries in the hope that isolating the sick might help stop the spread of further contagion. He spent days at a time at Fort River, unable and perhaps given the fear of spreading the contagion, unwilling to return to his wife and three children. Kennedy and his family would survive the epidemic intact, though according to Rose, that's his wife. The pressure on her husband was so great that he developed an ulcer, the first manifestation of the stress induced stomach problems that would plague him all his life. In late October, the epidemic crested, and that was good news. A month later, the war was over.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “He was also asked to oversee the feeding of tens of thousands of men who now worked at the shipyards. He brought in an outside contractor to set up a self-serve cafeteria that could serve thirteen hundred and eighty meals in 15 minutes. Seeing the opportunity to make a handsome profit for himself, he organized a privately held company, the Four River Lunch Company, and contracted out to it the task of feeding the Four Rivers employees. Though not in uniform, he believed he was doing his part for the nation, working sixty five to seventy hours a week and occasionally spending the night in his office. All the stuff he does is in addition to his full time job. He's still trading stocks, he's still investing in real estate, he's working 65 and 70 hours as a manager at Fort River, and now he just started a lunch company.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “In World War I, he was of age for military service. He was already supporting his wife and two children, one of those children being the future president, JFK. And so he did not want to go to war. He wanted to stay stateside and support his family. Because he had experience in banking and was already a president of a bank, he was recruited by a local company in Boston that was that had a multimillion dollar contract with the US government to build ships and other supplies that the troops needed. And it was called Four River.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “He never borrowed more than he thought he could repay and only at preferential rates, and he never defaulted, though occasionally he was forced to take out a new loan to pay off an older one. His ability to juggle numbers and accounts was remarkable. So too his capacity to profit from a booming market. Later in life, Kennedy would confess to being a bear in all things, including the market, and take great pride in the money he had made betting on stocks to go down. But that was certainly not the case in his twenties when he was convinced that no matter how violent the short term swings, the American economy was strong and would only grow stronger. Joseph P. Kennedy, still in his middle twenties, was well on his way to becoming a wealthy man, but only on the way.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Joseph P. Kennedy jumped back in, wiser now and a bit more cautious, but convinced that having made a killing once he could do it again. On November 2nd, nineteen fifteen, short of capital. It was a short-term six-month loan backed by some stock certificates, life insurance policies, and real estate. In the months and years to come, there would be other sizable loans, some of them secured by notes backed by real estate, and a few backed by Columbia Trust stock.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Between October 31, 1914 and May 1, 1915, its assets rose by almost $46,000. An increase of more than 5% in six months. Joseph Kennedy's personal fortune increased as well. He continued his association with old colony realty, which was now billed itself as the largest operator in Boston's suburban residential properties. As president of Columbia Trust, he had immediate access to capital and credit which he used not only to finance his mortgage and real estate dealings, but also to purchase stocks. His former Harvard classmate and friend, Tom Campbell, remembered Joe telling him that every stock he bought zoomed. It was such an easy way to make money that I had wondered why more people did not know about it. I was afraid the market would close before I had all I wanted.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Route I have to go. On January 21st, Joe Kennedy's photograph appeared on the Boston papers over the caption Youngest in the State, Joseph P. Kennedy elected President of Columbia Trust Company at age twenty five. This was the goal Kennedy had set for himself on resigning as assistant bank examiner. Kennedy proved himself a more than able bank president, almost immediately upon taking office, he injected new life into a trust company that in the last twelve months had lost one percent of its assets, while Boston's other trust companies had increased theirs by three percent. Commuting from his parents' house, he arrived early and stayed late. By June 1914, after six months on the job, he had increased Columbia's trust holdings by some 27% to $920,000 two hundred four dollars sixteen cents.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Okay, so now we're gonna see him shifting gears again, which he does a lot. In the first week of December 1913, Joseph Kennedy resigned his position as assistant bake examiner, but not because he had been offered a position at any of the major banks or investment houses in the city or state. He returned home instead to East Boston and the Columbia Trust Company, which his father had helped found decades earlier and which was now threatened with takeover by several large Boston banks. So this is a trait you're going to see Kennedy do. He'll have an idea. He'll test that idea. In this case, he said, hey, I want to work for a big Boston bank. They're not hiring me. Let me become a bank examiner. That's not still working out. So I'm going to reduce the scope of my ambition, go back to East Boston where he didn't want to go and start working for a tiny, tiny bank. But again, he just wanted to break into the industry. So through trial and error, he realized, okay, this is the...”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “He lived cheaply in his parents' house, keeping his option open, he invested his profits from his tour bus company in whatever earnings he could put aside in a real estate company old colony realty with his friend Harry. Harry ran the day to day business, Kennedy washed over the books, and they had some successes and a few failures. Kennedy did not put much energy or time into the business. Real estate was not a profession worthy of its full time attention. So I want to stop there. There's two interesting things. Something that I'm going to constantly say throughout today's podcast is Kennedy constantly had side businesses, side hustles going on at the same time he was doing other things. He was never dedicated just solely to one thing. He let opportunity”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Dressed impeccably in his three piece suit, starched white shirt, rounded collar, and shiny shoes, with his red hair carefully slicked down, he already looked the part of the prosperous young banker. Had anticipated that after a short time as assistant examiner, he would be offered a position by one of the bank's officers whom he had impressed with his newly inquired knowledge on the banking business. But no such offer was forthcoming.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “So with no entry-level position at hand, he decided to take a different route into the Boston Banking Establishment. He would sit for the Civil Service Examination for Assistant State Bank Examiner. So this is actually a really smart lateral move. He was trying to break through in an industry. He had no openings. So he thought, okay, well, how can I get to my goal instead of going straight down the path of what most people do, I have to find a different way in and kind of sneak my way in. So he decided, hey, I can meet a lot of bankers if I'm a bank examiner, if I'm part of the people regulating them.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Why Joe decided to go into banking and finance after Harvard was a bit of a mystery. The only answer to Kennedy's choice of vocation is that he was always aimed high and almost always succeeded. He was good with numbers, had a Harvard degree, and had made some contacts at Harvard with proper Bostonians whose families controlled Boston's financial institutions. This is him speaking. Banking ranked as high as any commercial profession, he would explain to a reporter in nineteen twenty eight. It was the basic business profession, and it offered a career ladder with more than one rung. Banking could lead a man anywhere as it played an important part in every business.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “So Joe bought a decrepit looking bus for $600 to be paid on the installment plan. He painted it cream in blue with Mayflower written in bold black letters on the side, and then he went into the sightseeing business. His partner Donovan drove the bus, while Joe handled the megaphone. This is a quote from Kennedy Passengers didn't take the ride just for fresh air or for the thrill of motor driving. They were interested in history, and I let them have it. I made special studies of Paul Revere and dug up every record I could find in the Boston libraries.”

    2017-04-19 · Founders · #4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source