Thomas Levenson "Money for Nothing" (Random House, 2020)
New Books in Economics
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Army Debentures for Sword Blade Company Stock
Some of the people who would later become the, the principles and villains in the South Sea bubble took over one of these early stock companies. The company was launched in 1690s to make swords in the Spanish style. And they went bankrupt in a couple, three years. They exchanged army debentures for titles to Irish land that had been condemned or taken away from them by one shenanigans or another. It turned out that the legal title of the properties was never cleared and they couldn't actually take possession of most of them.
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