Crashes and Crises: Lessons From a History of Financial Disasters

The influence of technology on today's investing; the potential for crashes and crises; the Flash Crash of 2010; a dip in the market due to programmed trading; the phenomenon of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin they rely on blockchain technology.

Investigating two of the most notorious con men; the Ponzi scheme is named after Charles Ponzi; Ivan Krueger uses an elaborate variant of Ponzi's swindle; the three ingredients that most Ponzi schemes share; how to identify scams.

The freewheeling financial market; the staid system of the post-World War Two era; the stability of financial markets; how the present system has evolved; the types of markets; why we live in an era of busts.

The 17th century tulip bubble is a classic case of futures trading run amok; how the tulip mania resembles today's speculative markets; the truth behind this financial bubble; the problem of deciding the fair price of an asset; how bubbles start.

The British stock market in the early 18th century; a financially-strapped government and a public craze for investing creates ideal conditions for one of history's most brazen stock manipulators; John Blunt's use of the South Sea Company.

The Mississippi bubble is an early 18th century financial crisis; it is sparked by speculation; John Law is the bubble's instigator; he is a Scottish gambler; he gains control of the French economy; he plunges France into economic collapse.