HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

The awesome folks at Extra Credit History did a great series on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kndKWJKB8

⬐ cjlars

As a fan of financial history -- and I know that's an odd thing to be interested in -- this is the craziest story I've ever heard.

⬐ thedudeabides5

The Mississippi Bubble came first, don't you know?

https://rose.ai/dashboard/daily.observations.20190918.the.mi...

⬐ psspss

See also Tulip Mania: "the first recorded speculative bubble"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

⬐ H8crilA

Financial/economic history is incredibly important if one wants to invest successfully. Much of the things we see in the markets had happened before, but not necessarily in our lifetimes. For example there were entire decades in the US history when bonds easily outperformed stocks, yet because of the last decade your typical retail investor thinks bonds are for people that don't want good long term gains.

"How The Economic Machine Works" https://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0

⬐ herdrick

It's not just the last decade. Since the mid-1980s the conventional wisdom has been that stocks > bonds for long term gain.

If you liked this story, I also highly recommend the YouTube Extra History miniseries on the South Sea Bubble, which is a very similar contemporary scheme in the U.K. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kndKWJKB8

⬐ kartan

Another video, this is about Marco Polo writings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UiIpiV0P0M

And it mentions also the invention of Money.

Also mentioned: The south sea company was basically a huge banking bubble scam. It is quite an interesting tale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kndKWJKB8

⬐ arcticbull

Hello? Bitcoin? Is that you? Nah just a ghost of poor banking decisions past. Spooky.

⬐ 0xname

Although many can see Bitcoin as a scam, I think the South Sea bubble is in a different league altogether. Financial schemes such as introducing crazy loans, coupled with the (essentially) full backing of the government at the time lured in even people like Isaac Newton. Bitcoin in comparison does not even match the hype the South Sea had at the time (nor will it have the power to carry a nation in debt for more than 100 years)

⬐ fsloth

I think Bitcoin resembles the Mississippi company a bit more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Company

TLDR: Scottish gambler becomes the most influential financial state official in France and uses his power to create an impossible financial scheme, makes everyone crazy for stocks for a colony that is mostly composed of colonists dying of hardship, resulting in an implosion of French Economy. Scottish, oh how they've been around. This is a funny sidenote to one of the founding fathers of US, Alexander Hamilton, who was as well of scottish heritage but created a financial system that did not implode.

⬐ VintageCool

Scotland agreed to merger with England in 1707 after the country was financially ruined by another crazy scheme in the Americas. They had tried to create a colony in Panama, in an area which is "virtually uninhabited" today.

It is always amazing to me that humans are just so predictably greedy. You'd have thought that we'd have learned any damned thing from history. For other readers with a bit of free time this Friday afternoon, XtraHistory has a great series on the 'South Sea Company' Bubble and the always interesting First British Prime Minister, Robert Walpole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kndKWJKB8

Extra History has a great series on the South Sea company:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kndKWJKB8

I think you'd like this overview of England's South Sea Company and how John Blunt used all kinds of now illegal monetary fraud to become England's largest company, worth more than their GDP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kndKWJKB8

⬐ beojan

> become England's largest company, worth more than their GDP:

In case people don't realize, GDP is the total amount a country produces per year, not the total value of the country. There's nothing impossible about a country's largest company being worth more than it's GDP.

⬐ downrightmike

There's still a long way to go to do that: With that market cap, Apple is worth nearly 1% of the world’s GDP according to the latest estimates from the World Bank that peg the world’s output at $74.2 trillion. That also means the company is valued at close to 4.4% of America’s $18 trillion GDP. https://www.investopedia.com/news/apple-now-bigger-these-5-t...

⬐ beojan

Saudi Aramco is worth 1 to 5 times Saudi Arabia's GDP.

⬐ downrightmike

What is most interesting about the South Sea Company, is that they didn't actually produce anything. They had rights to send one ship to Spanish ports for trade in the new world, but the ports would turn them away because the port authorities didn't want them/didn't believe them. Vs exporting oil which now heavily used.

For those who want an accessible introduction to the South Sea Bubble, Extra History has a video series on the causes and aftermath: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kndKWJKB8&list=PLEb6sGT7oD...

⬐ sinnet3000

Thanks for that link! It's really ironic I was getting ads of a Mexican bitcoin exchange while watching this!

For an entertaining summary of this, I recommend the youtube series Extra History: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1kndKWJKB8