Many like to compare internet mania with the Dutch tulip mania of the 1600's. This is an inccurate, misleading, and unfair comparison. To wit:
- Tulips were a real commodity.
- Tulips had a socially redeeming aesthetic value.
- Tulip farmers had to know what they were doing.
- Not any tulip had value, only those with mosaic virus.
- The tulip bulb market was liquid.
- Tulip bulbs are hard, and could not be short squeezed.
- The highest valued bulb on record had the value of a house. No bulb was worth the GNP of entire countries.
and last, but not least
- Tulip farmers actually had earnings. |
