Worthless
The True Story of John Law of Edinburgh
In 2008, $1.2 trillion vanished from the U.S. stock market. In 2001, investors in Enron lost $50 billion. In 1929, the market lost $30 billion. In two days. These bubbles are not an aberration in the system - they are the system. Who in the world would concoct such a thing?
John Law was a professional gambler, wit and rogue who infiltrated London aristocracy, killed a man in a duel over a woman, was sentenced to hang (the first of three times), escaped prison in a hearse, fled into exile, eloped with a married descendant of Anne Boleyn, became Minister of Finance of France, issued the first real paper money, invented the common stock market, founded New Orleans as a real estate swindle, raised a private navy, built the world’s largest company, levied the first ever income tax, destroyed the world's largest company, ruined several European economies, made the Louisiana Purchase necessary and the French Revolution inevitable and, in the process, developed our current global financial system, which he based entirely on a card game. |
“I leave the world only tools. The wisdom of how to use them can only be acquired by experience.”
John Law |