I'm glad he labeled the tulips or I might have confused them with mutant onions
First really big speculative bubble was the netherlands investing in growing and breeding tulips as a cash crop. They way overproduced and it crashed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
Lol
The modern discussion of tulip mania began with the book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, published in 1841 by the Scottish journalist Charles Mackay; he proposed that crowds of people often behave irrationally, and tulip mania was, along with the South Sea Bubble and the Mississippi Company scheme, one of his primary examples. His account was largely sourced from a 1797 work by Johann Beckmann titled A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins.[14] Beckmann in turn used several available sources, but all of them drew heavily from the satirical Dialogues that were written to mock the speculators.[54] Mackay's vivid book was popular among generations of economists and stock market participants. His popular but flawed description of tulip mania as a speculative bubble remains prominent, even though since the 1980s economists have debunked many aspects of his account.[54]
even though since the 1980s economists have debunked many aspects of his account.[54]
:citations-needed:
Like even if it isn't an accurate account, how is it not a useful allegory? We've had how many crashes since 1980 alone? Like clearly a cautionary tale against financialization is useful considering that financialization and speculation since 2000 has caused the dot con bubble, an energy crisis in California (caused by Enron financializing energy in some dumb way), the 2008 crash, and even besides the bitcoin crash there's whatever market crash were currently living through.
I reject on it's face the possibility of the 1980s correctly explaining anything.
I personally have found “let me invest in a failing small sandwich shop because I liked their milk shakes” to be a surprisingly successful strategy
The South Sea Trading Company is another good one for old timey financialization + crash, that one reminds me of crypto especially the zero connection to reality or a real use case.
I don't think the SSTC is a good comparison to crypto because it's value came from a monopoly guaranteed by the government. Now granted it was a monopoly on nothing, but in a way people were buying it on the good faith of the British Empire.
I'm sure I've seen the Bitcoin logo on old Garrison comics, but can't remember how Bitcoin was portrayed. Was he always against it?
I think he was for it in the past, but probably lost money on it.
I can imagine a George Soros spider with the Bitcoin logo on its carapace sitting in a web rubbing its pedipalps together and a buff man with the Bitcoin logo for a head socking another guy whose head is just THE FEDERAL RESERVE in block letters in the jaw and both would make equal amounts of sense for Ben
I wouldn't have expected a turbo-libertarian like Garrison to be anti-bitcoin.
There's a really good book called "Devil Take the Hindmost" about this history of the stock market, it's literally always a bubble
He has anti-cop comics from before Trump. He's just a reactionary, he's not coherent so he'll be right sometimes by accident
