Economist: WHEN his neighbour discovered gold in a Californian river in 1848, Sam Brannan could have kept quiet about it. Instead, he filled a jar with gold dust and rushed around the streets of San Francisco shouting "Gold! Gold! Gold!" He had good reason to incite a gold rush: he owned a shop nearby. He became California's first millionaire by selling picks, shovels, beans and bacon to the horde of prospectors who heeded his call.
Gold fever spread fast. The lure of buried treasure "sucked nearly every...