Blowing Bubbles: The Company You Keep (part I)

Behind the ornate baroque façade of Venice's San Moise church, literally under the feet of the tens of thousands of tourists who visit the church each year, there is a remarkable but seldom noticed inscription:

HONORI ET MEMORIAL JOANNIS LAW EDINBURGENSES REGII
GALLIARUM AERARII PREFECTI CLARISSIMA

'To the honour and memory of John Law of Edinburgh. Most distinguished controller of the treasury of the kings of the French.' It is a rather unlikely resting place for the man who invented the stock market bubble.

An ambitious Scot, a convicted murderer, a compulsive gambler and a flawed financial genius, John Law was not only responsible for the first true boom and bust in asset prices. He also may be said to have caused, indirectly, the French Revolution by comprehensively blowing the best chance that the ancien régime monarchy had to reform its finances. His story is one of the most astonishing yet least well understood tales of adventure in all financial history. It is also very much a story for our times.