No matter what "value determines the price", supply and demand is king, as long as you can still pay money, the price has no upper limit.
In the face of out-of-control interests, human beings are crazy and even afraid of themselves...
Yes, these two sentences describe the "heart-wrenching" Dutch tulip bubble incident.
In 1554, a man named Busbek saw a flower in Adrianopol, Turkey, which he did not know before, and he liked it so much that he brought it back to Central Europe.
The flower was later named tulip.
After the tulip, which was originally unknown in the East, arrived in Europe, it was quickly popular with people, especially in the Netherlands, which was extremely economically developed at that time.
At first, it was reasonable, and most of the consumers were French dignitaries. They planted this "foreign variety" of plants in the courtyard of their sea-view villas, and from time to time invited relatives, friends and colleagues to come and show off, and their vanity was greatly satisfied.
Slowly, the Number of French people who wanted to "satisfy vanity" became more and more numerous, and the price of tulips became higher and higher. When Miyerell, a Dutchman who traded in France, knew that there were French "local tycoons" who were willing to exchange 30,000 francs of jewelry for a tulip bulb, he knew that the opportunity to get rich came.
At that time, in the Netherlands, tulips were small and famous in large cities such as Amsterdam, Uzhen Lecht, Alkmaar, etc., but it was still in the period when gardeners were willing to exchange and buy and sell in dozens. But Miyerell, a native of the Netherlands, understood that the mega-rich, who liked to compare and emulate aristocratic life, soon discovered that tulips were the true symbol of identity.
So he began to buy in bulk from the gardeners and stockpiled them.
Sure enough, beginning in 1634, a frenzy of speculation appeared.
In order to make trade more professional, tulip flower balls were sold according to their weight, that is, "ounces". At large auctions, precious tulip flower balls are measured with small scales weighing gold, which are then sold to interested people with the highest bids. Lightning bolts have transformed country inns into bustling tulip exchanges, and almost all citizens have joined in this ecstatic speculation.
Unlike other abstract stocks and securities, this tulip game is intuitive and easy to master for everyone. Even the most ordinary person can take such a flower ball in his hand and plant it in his garden, he can enjoy the beautiful flowers, and he can also use it to make himself worry-free.
Published in 1643, The Blooming and Withering of Flowers, a scene was recorded in which craftsmen, crews, farmers, peat porters, boys, girls, chimney cleaners, merchants, and nobles, all of whom, without exception, were captured by the tulip boom.
By this time, tulips were no longer an ornament for the Dutch to cultivate their sentiments, but were used as "hens that laid golden eggs".
Judges and lawyers quickly set the standards for tulip trading, mainstream newspapers published tulip securities quote columns in the most prominent positions, and almost every bar set up exquisite and grand tulip auction houses - whenever a large transaction was successful, buyers and sellers would charter a private venue to celebrate wildly.
Beginning at the end of 1635, tulips were completely out of control. An ordinary tulip flower ball sold for 2500 Gulden (Guilder). What is the concept of this number? Put it this way, 2500 Gulden at that time could buy 2 carriages of wheat, 4 carriages of hay, 4 fat cows or 6 big fat pigs, a dozen big fat sheep, 4 barrels of beer, 2 barrels of butter, 1 ton of cheese, a set of handmade custom suits and a silver cup.
If it is a special breed, it is even worse. For example, a tulip variety called Child sold for 10,000 Gulden per plant, while the Tifiy variety, which set a trading record at the time (only two in the Netherlands), reached a trading price of 20,000 Gulden + a brand new carriage + two gray horses + a complete set of harnesses, which is about equal to the price of 40 big fat cattle.
The book Blooming and Withering of Flowers records that during a period of madness, even in a small Dutch city, tulips were traded at 10 million gourds a year — equivalent to the total market capitalization of the shares of the East India Company, the world's most powerful company at the time.
In 1637, a beehive in the small town of Alkmaar announced that it would auction more than 120 tulip flower balls, which was originally arranged for an auction house that could accommodate 1,000 people, but due to the large number of people coming, the auction venue had to be changed to the municipal square. Even so, it still can't stop the crazy people who rush to buy. They screamed and rushed to the crowd to make an offer, pushing and shoving each other, kicking and kicking. The scene was chaotic. In the end, it took hundreds of police and military personnel hours to evacuate the assembled crowd.
At this auction, the final income of the hive was 90,000 Gulden.
It was Tulip's last big in the Netherlands.
Maybe someone suddenly thought of a question: if no one is willing to pay 3000 or even 2000 Gulden, then what is the use of the tulip flower ball in their hand? Is it just to put it in the yard for three or five years?
This anxiety cooled the frenzy at once, and first a few skeptical people exchanged their tulips for currency with the idea of trying it out. Soon, more and more people will get rid of the tulips they hold, the auction house prices will begin to fall, and the demand for tulips will be significantly reduced.
Before long, some flower dealers had to drag their flower balls around to sell. The supply of goods rose rapidly, and in the hotel that was converted into a tulip exchange, speculators with large loans began to panic. They sit by the small scales used to weigh gold, which they once used to weigh tulips, and now tulips suddenly don't want to, and people no longer want to pay a little price for it.
The tulip has changed back into a tulip, it is no longer noble, it is no longer an investment asset, it has become a plant in the flower bed like other ordinary flowers, reduced to a plant for passers-by to appreciate.
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