In 19 55, the soviet union moved its dollars to london rather than new york. The banks realized they had stumbled upon an amazingly profitable thing. They'd invented a space that had no law t they'd totally knocked a hole through the global financial regulatory system. This is whereit s from. And soon it wasn't soviet banks and japanese banks moving dollars - it was every bank in britain because there were no rules for them. It's very much a post imperial story, a, you know, wheat we went bust as an empire and we needed a new way of making a living.