Episode 651: Michael Meyer - Benjamin Franklin's Last Bet: The Favorite Founder's Divisive Death, Enduring Afterlife, and Blueprint for American Prosperity
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The incredible story of Benjamin Franklin\\u2019s parting gift to the working-class people of Boston and Philadelphia\\u2014a deathbed wager that captures the Founder\\u2019s American Dream and his lessons for our current, conflicted age.
Benjamin Franklin was not a gambling man. But at the end of his illustrious life, the Founder allowed himself a final wager on the survival of the United States: a gift of two thousand pounds to Boston and Philadelphia, to be lent out to tradesmen over the next two centuries to jump-start their careers. Each loan would be repaid with interest over ten years. If all went according to Franklin\\u2019s inventive scheme, the accrued final payout in 1991 would be a windfall.\\xa0
In Benjamin Franklin\\u2019s Last Bet, Michael Meyer traces the evolution of these twin funds as they age alongside America itself, bankrolling woodworkers and silversmiths, trade schools and space races. Over time, Franklin\\u2019s wager was misused, neglected, and contested\\u2014but never wholly extinguished. With charm and inquisitive flair, Meyer shows how Franklin\\u2019s stake in the \\u201cleather-apron\\u201d class remains in play to this day, and offers an inspiring blueprint for prosperity in our modern era of growing wealth disparity and social divisions.
Get the book here:\\xa0 https://wellingtonsquarebooks.indiecommerce.com/book/9781328568892