There’s a story, likely apocryphal, of Albert Einstein working at the Swiss Patent Office in the early 1900s and examining devices claiming to be perpetual motion machines. “We know they don’t work,” Einstein is supposed to have quipped. “The fun part is working out why they don’t work.”

Financial machines of perpetual motion don’t work either, but financial history, my specialty, is littered with people trying: Usually, the elaborate attempts have to blow up before we can see them for what they were. From the South Sea Company directors trying to bubble away Britain’s government debt in 1720 to the shitcoiners and scammers of 2017 (and again in 2022) dreaming of perpetual crypto riches, there’s always another schmuck thinking this time is different.