Nelson Saiers 101: A Walk Through The Brilliant Artist's 10 Best Works

N. S.: The piece "Yo Cuz" addresses the beginning of WWI, and one of the most interesting events I know of in 20th-century finance. So WWI was started because a Serbian terrorist assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. And because of various treaties, this meant that Russia and Germany were now enemies. As the title would hint at, "Yo Cuz," the leaders of Russia and Germany were actually first cousins, namely Czar Nicholas [II] and Kaiser Wilhelm [II].

In a series of wires between the two leaders on the day leading up to WWI, really spoke to the consequences and ramifications of this war that they were about to embark on. I've translated those wires into a modern-day iPhone conversation between the two leaders that starts with "Yo cuz." In this conversation, I address some of the issues and the events leading up to WWI, like the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

So why would this piece be relevant to a financial show? Well, one of the consequences of WWI beginning was the closure of most exchanges globally. So you couldn't trade stocks in most countries globally. And so, for example, the New York Stock Exchange was closed for four months....One of the questions the piece addresses is: How would a modern-day finance trader—or, sorry, a derivatives trader—react to that news? So, they're sitting late-July and they hear rumors of the New York Stock Exchange closing. What would they do if they had a book full of products? What would they do with the derivatives that are available to trade currently, knowing about this Exchange closure?

The next part of the piece analogizes the beginning of WWI to how financial crashes often happen. So in WWI, there was an event—the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. And because of interconnectedness of these various players, it brought the entire world into this war. Now with a crash, it often is similar. So you have an event like Lehman Brothers failing; and because of interconnectedness of various market participants, other players begin to falter as well, leading the entire world into a kind of financial crisis like we saw in 2008.

[Photo courtesy of Nelson Saiers]