
ARREARS VIEW MIRROR
PLUS ÇA CHANGE . . . As we witness the popping of an asset bubble inflated by a smooth-talking quant with big hair, it’s nice to be reminded that we’ve been here before. Slightly more than three hundred years ago, having fled a murder conviction in England and gambled his way through Europe, roguish Scot and innovative economist John Law arrived in France with, shall we say, disruptive ideas regarding currency. A biographer of the period described him as “handsome, tall, with a good Address, and . . . a particular Talent of pleasing the Ladies”: I picture Law as a young, Bond-era Sean Connery