Monday, December 01, 2008

Ponziani, Law and the South Sea Bubble

Just been watching " The ascent of money". I was reminded of Ponziani, that wonderful Italian Chess player. You may think I should think of Ponzi, the wonderful American conman.
Ponzi schemes rely on more money coming in from outside to pay off earlier investors. MORE AND MORE MONEY is needed as more people are sucked in.
Notice anything? Sound a bit like what
Brown and Darling are doing at the moment?
John Law ( a Scots ne'er do well) initiated the Mississippi scheme in France, and bankrupted France for 50 years.
The South Sea Bubble did the same to the UK. Ponzi was on a much smaller scale, not national in extent.
But our own two Scots ne'er do wells are intending a Ponzi scheme on such a massive scale that if implemented as presently envisaged, UK plc may never recover.
Terrifying.
But why Ponziani?
Well the opening he advocated was one of the oldest, and held sway for pretty much 100 years, until developing theory found better moves.
Brown and Darling are like that - out of date. Rather like the generals of WWI, who fought the previous wars until something better was found, our present leaders are dealing with a new problem with an old solution.
Unfortunately for all of us, the result will be rather like that war to end all wars.
Disastrous.

1 comment:

Whispering Walls said...

Can they be arrested under terrorism laws?