Job Hunting Season

My reading schedule has been severely curtailed the past few weeks due to a protracted job search. As a result I have progressed only another chapter into Aldcroft's European Economy: 1914-2000 and about half-way through Janet Gleeson's, "Millionaire: The Philanderer, Gambler, and Duelist Who Invented Modern Finance" in a short evening. So some books are painfully wearisome for the sheer girth of their relevance and worthiness of fine tooth-comb reading while others entirely as relevant are often simply more artistic a rendering of similar topics with similar results in the provoking and jabbering of the reading mind.

As for the job search it must be a credit to my improved research skills and certain blind faith that there are answers to prayers and that I would willingly wish the ability to be three places at once. If not only for three salaries but to enjoy three entirely satisfying possible jobs. It was the first time I ever really remember attending three interviews in fairly quick succession and having three serious job offers to contend with. The other factor is timing. It is a difficult time to rustle up applicants.

So what was the cornerstone of modern finance according to Gleeson? Namely, that the talents of true gamblers are sometimes required to facilitate banking processes such as credit extensions which finance growth and paper currency stability which permits increased rates of trade. Gleeson's topic is a Scotsman named John Law who made first efforts at understanding and applying theoretical applications of probabilities research on the gaming tables. His was a gambling vice with a twist. He won more than he lost eventually. Something few gamblers can claim.

However Law's talents were first made available to the English crown and they were rejected as he had involved himself in admission of his dueling manslaughter of a rich English family's rake. So the gambler ingratiated himself with the Duc d'Orleans and was swept into favour through common sense approaches to debt and credit loads which only paper currency banks and exchanges could provide. However I have arrived at one obvious canard which was the financing of the Louisiana Company in a world endlessly scratching the value out of its precious metals currencies. In such a case, Law is found to have scratched untested real property a little too heavily.