Banks, Not Armies

Banks, Not Armies

Florence, 1490sThe thing about the Medici that is most relevant to the present moment is not the art patronage, which is what they are remembered for, but the banking. Lorenzo understood something that most political leaders of his era did not fully grasp: that...
Paper Kingdoms

Paper Kingdoms

Various, 1720 to presentThe Mississippi Bubble of 1720 was the first time I watched a modern financial system collapse under its own invented certainty. John Law’s system was genuinely sophisticated for its time: it attempted to decouple value from gold and...