The South Sea Bubble

At the end of the seventeenth century, English investors discovered that a piece of paper – a share or a bond - could be as profitable as holdings in land and far less cumbersome to administer. Furthermore, while land was taxed, profits from these new securities were not, a situation that inevitably led to abuse. In this essay, New York Times bestselling author Robert Wernick traces the remarkable history of the South Sea Bubble, one of the greatest financial scandals of all time.