(np - Melville - was Re: The People's History & the Cold War ) equity? who ever heard of that?

[alice wellintown]

Yes, Astor, the model of the 1%, is quite an important allusion here.
And, we should not understand the allusion without a good deal of
digging into the business that Bartleby, much like Jacob Marley,
directs our narrator to weigh and measure, invest in, both in equity
and debt--and we should recall that it is land, mortgaged land, and
tenements, that snug business, still the largest and most powerful on
Wall Street, that our narrator does business in. What has this to do
with Washington Irving and the Devil and Tom Walker? Land Banks and
mortgages? Ahab (from the Book of Kings)? The Preface to the House of
the Seven Gables? Judge Pyncheon? The balloon L Frank Baum and a
Syracuse Bank and the Chums? Well, that is a tale.