““When enough people share a short-lived delusion, vast sums of money can be acquired overnight. The ‘tulip mania’ in Holland in the mid-seventeenth century was such a time. Tulips had been imported into Holland for forty years before the madness hit. By 1635, a single tulip bulb was swapped for a collection of valuable articles, which included the following: four tons of wheat eight tons of rye a bed four oxen eight pigs a suit of clothes two caskets of wine four tonnes of beer two tons of butter one thousand pounds of cheese a silver drinking cup The current value of the above would be $50,000 or more. And this was for a single tulip bulb! Fortunes were made or lost, especially the latter, when the music stopped. Within a few years, a tulip bulb was worth less than a dollar in today’s money. Here is the wonder of collective short-term delusion writ large.””
![“Only a short time ago hed envied these brightly plumed birds[ladies in pastel dresses]. They possessed everything money could buy and most had the leisure to enjoy it. Yet their needs were greater than his own. They required a flock of admirers, dozens of servants, expensive clothes, and showy…” quote by Cara Lynn James](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/f91/cara-lynn-james-89493_expensive-clothes_only-a-short-time-ago-hed-envied-these-b_1218029.jpg)
