Sep 182008
Number 1 son decided yesterday that he’d heard quite enough from father about the perfidy of the Royal Society and the madness of stock markets. He emerged from the local library with a bundle of his usual gory arcana and – for me – a copy of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. After reading the first chapter on the Mississippi Scheme I feel better. That was the episode shortly after the death of Louis XIV in which a Scottish adventurer won the confidence of the Regent, commandeered the heights of the French economy and led the nation straight down the gurgler.
The resemblance of the chap on the right to a younger Alan Greenspan is a bit of a worry.
