The Laziest Way to Get Rich

They Said It Was Stupid. It Paid for 264 Years.

There’s a story most investors have never heard.

In 1751, the British government had a problem you’d recognize immediately: too much debt, too many creditors, too many different interest rates. Prime Minister Henry Pelham did something radical.

He took every outstanding government debt instrument and consolidated it into a single bond (the “Consolidated Annuities”) at a fixed rate of 3.5% per year. No maturity date. No obligation to ever repay the principal.

The instrument born that year lived for 264 years.

The British Consols were redeemed for the last time in 2015, when the government finally cancelled what remained in circulation. A bond that survived the Industrial Revolution, two World Wars, the end of the gold standard, the fall of the British Empire, and the creation of the euro. A bond nobody had to roll over. That never matured. That simply... existed.

Why did it last so long?

The answer is in the mechanics, not the politics.

The first reason was the elimination of refinancing ri…