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MEMOIRS OF EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS AND THE Madness of Crowds - 1852 edition

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  • MEMOIRS OF EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS AND THE Madness of Crowds - 1852 edition

    Want some good "from the past" reading? Here you can find the book for free. If you register you can download it. Enjoy

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/13677016/E...Of-Crowds-1852

    THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME.
    John Law; his birth and youthful career—Duel between Law and Wilson—Law‟s escape from the King‟s Bench—The “Land-bank”—Law‟s gambling propensities on the continent, and acquaintance with the Duke of Orleans—State of France after the reign of Louis XIV.—Paper money instituted in that country by Law— Enthusiasm of the French people at the Mississippi Scheme—Marshal Villars— Stratagems employed and bribes given for an interview with Law—Great fluctuations in Mississippi stock—Dreadful murders—Law created comptroller general of finances—Great sale for all kinds of ornaments in Paris—Financial difficulties commence—Men sent out to work the mines on the Mississippi, as a blind—Payment stopped at the bank—Law dismissed from the ministry— Payments made in specie—Law and the Regent satirised in song—Dreadful crisis of the Mississippi Scheme—Law, almost a ruined man, flies to Venice—Death of the Regent—Law obliged to resort again to gambling—His death at Venice
    IN reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims
    and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not
    what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one
    object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously
    impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new
    folly more captivating than the first. We see one nation suddenly seized, from its highest
    to its lowest members, with a fierce desire of military glory; another as suddenly
    becoming crazed upon a religious scruple; and neither of them recovering its senses
    until it has shed rivers of blood and sowed a harvest of groans and tears, to be reaped by
    its posterity. At an early age in the annals of Europe its population lost their wits about
    the sepulchre of Jesus, and crowded in frenzied multitudes to the Holy Land; another
    age went mad for fear of the devil, and offered up hundreds of thousands of victims to
    the delusion of witchcraft. At another time, the many became crazed on the subject of
    the philosopher‟s stone, and committed follies till then unheard of in the pursuit. It was
    once thought a venial offence, in very many countries of Europe, to destroy an enemy by
    slow poison. Persons who would have revolted at the idea of stabbing a man to the heart,
    drugged his pottage without scruple.
    Nothing has changed. Gambling and Investing is the two sides of the same coin. That is why it is necessary to keep the game as clean as possible ... else!!!! :p

  • #2
    Re: MEMOIRS OF EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS AND THE Madness of Crowds - 1852 edition

    Same on Gutenburg (no reg necessary)
    http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/24518

    You may also like
    Fiat Money Inflation in France

    I have read both, they are both worth a read.
    It's Economics vs Thermodynamics. Thermodynamics wins.

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