Merryn Talks Money: John Law, The Gambler Who Invented Modern Money (Part 1)
Odd Lots
Bloomberg
4.5 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 26 December 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hello Odd Lots listeners! As we take a break for the holidays we'd like to take a moment and bring you an episode by one of our sister shows here at Bloomberg Podcasts, Merryn Talks Money.
In this special two-part series, John Stepek and Merryn Somerset Webb tell the extraordinary story of John Law: a fugitive Scots gambler who became the most powerful financier in France and helped invent the modern monetary system. From murder and exile to paper money, banking revolutions and spectacular collapse, Law’s life reveals why today’s financial system works the way it does—and why it sometimes blows up. It’s history, scandal and monetary theory rolled into one irresistible tale.
We used a range of sources for this podcast but two key books to read if you'd like to find out more are:
John Law: A Scottish Adventurer of the Eighteenth Century (2018), by James Buchan
John Law: Economic Theorist and Policy-Maker (1997), by Antoin Murphy
Like this episode? Listen and Subscribe to the Merryn Talks Money podcast on Apple, Spotify, iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts
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Transcript
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| 0:31.0 | build. Palantir, making Americans irreplaceable. Hey, Max Schaffkin here. On the latest episode of Bloomberg's Everybody's Business, Stacey Vanek-Smith and I have gathered the best and brightest of business podcasting. We're going to dissect the biggest stories of 2025. That's right. We are talking with Oddlots, Tracy Alloway, Felix Salmon of Slate Money, and Robert Smith of Planet Money. But TikTok, to be clear, has been banned all year. It's a law. It's a law. It is a law of the United States of America. It was such a good time. It was a good time. You can find everybody's business wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, Oddlod's listeners. I'm Joe Wisenthall. And I'm Tracy Allaway. We hope you're enjoying your holiday season and we're taking a little break ourselves. So we wanted to bring you an episode from one of our fellow podcasts here at Bloomberg. |
| 1:19.3 | A special holiday present, if you will. This is from the Marin Talks Money podcast, which is hosted by Marin Somerset Webb and John Stepeck. And it is all about |
| 1:30.1 | one of the most interesting historical economic figures. It's John Law. Yeah, that's right. So |
| 1:36.4 | John Law, 18th century gambler, murder, economic visionary. Like I think people say he like is |
| 1:42.9 | sort of the mind behind fiat currency, |
| 1:45.7 | as we know it today. So his influence is still felt and check out the episode. We hope you |
| 1:51.0 | enjoy. Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. Okay, look back through the history of money and quite often it seems like |
| 2:02.5 | nothing is happening, long, long bits of calm and then suddenly there's a catalyst of some kind. |
| 2:06.7 | Stuff changes, right? And you get everything exploding, things flipping, a period of chaos, |
| 2:11.9 | and then everything seems to reinvent itself. John Law, John, you know all about John Law, |
| 2:20.9 | his history reflects exactly that. |
| 2:27.3 | So what we're trying to do here over this holiday and over two episodes is tell his story, |
| 2:32.2 | which tells us a lot about money, right? Yeah, and we'd need to take two whole episodes to do it. |
| 2:34.6 | This is a special series, folks. |
| 2:40.9 | John Law Story is the story of based out, a fugitive Scotsman, clearly identify with that quite closely, briefly became the most powerful man in France. |
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