Genius Hour Reflection

I spend Friday reading  an article titled "Herd Thinking and Investment" from the American Economic Review on jstor. It explained the "sharing-the-blame" effect: the idea that a mistake does not reflect poorly on an individual, because many people with good reputations made the same mistake. So in making any decision, an investor must consider whether it is wise based on the stock's information and who else is doing something similar. Although this concept was explained in terms of economics, it's universal in culture. If respected individuals in any community make certain choices, others will follow their direction. It's deeply rooted in socialization; we are prone to learn form our environment. The problem with herd thinking is when it gets in the way of smart decisions, e.g. buying a stock because other, smart people are even though there is good reason to suspect it's value may plummet. This relates to my topic because it shows why individuals crashed the market beforehand, which was considered the catalyst for the Federal Reserve Act, and it shows why Americans have accepted the Federal Reserve. The smartest, most reputable individuals of the time were behind it -- including Woodrow Wilson.
While reading the article, I realized how little I knew about the functioning of the American Economic system so I also read an article to better understand the historical context of a Central Bank in the US, because I don't remember enough from APUSH.