Who would buy a tulip 1 million dollar today ?

RAMOUTAR · Jul 7, 2003

Quote from harrytrader:

At the height of the tulip bubble about 350 years ago, the rare Semper Augustus flower was worth 6 000 florins approximately 1 million dollar in today's money.

In 100 years the next generation would perhaps ask who would buy an internet dotcom ... or government bonds for 1 billion dollar whereas it was virtually in bankruptcy although nobody dare to tell this truth to the population like in any bubble

Great post harrytrader. Perhaps one of the best chronicles of delusional buyers, among the South Sea Co. It's amazing that bubbles and delusional buyers will always be around, and resurface in another fad. After reading Extraordinary Popular Delusions... my view of the markets changed forever. Normally, it's neither the supply nor the demand, but the perception of them.

harrytrader · Jul 7, 2003

I like more and more to read history - that wasn't the case before I rather found history boring - but now it fascinates me how people behave exactly with the same denial than people in the past: "It can't be, this time it's different, we live in modern civilisation" etc. That people are cupid doesn't surprise me but that they forget their interest and above all the interest of their children for the future I have some difficulty to imagine that their cupidity can go over that.

Quote from RAMOUTAR:

Great post harrytrader. Perhaps one of the best chronicles of delusional buyers, among the South Sea Co. It's amazing that bubbles and delusional buyers will always be around, and resurface in another fad. After reading Extraordinary Popular Delusions... my view of the markets changed forever. Normally, it's neither the supply nor the demand, but the perception of them.

Thunderdog · Jul 7, 2003

Depends on the color.

RAMOUTAR · Jul 7, 2003

Quote from harrytrader:

I like more and more to read history - that wasn't the case before I rather found history boring - but now it fascinates me how people behave exactly with the same denial than people in the past: "It can't be, this time it's different, we live in modern civilisation" etc. That people are cupid doesn't surprise me but that they forget their interest and above all the interest of their children for the future I have some difficulty to imagine that their cupidity can go over that.

"Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it." That's opne of the greatest things about history. So many of the world's greatest generals have all read Sun Tzu's Art of War. Many people couldn't understand why I recommended one of Charles Mackay's greatest pieces. Extraordinary Popular Delusions... became a "bible" of my trading faith. I read that book for the first time in 1990, and I really didn't understand it's meaning until the market whipped me.

Another great quote from that booko:

"Subscribers here by thousands float, and jostle one another down, Each paddling in his leaky boat, and here they fish for gold and drown. Now buried in the depths below. New mounted up to heaven again, they reel and stagger to and fro, At their wits' end. like drunken men. Meantime, secure on Garraway cliffs, A savage race, by shipwrecks fed, Lie waiting for the foundered skiffs, and strip the bodies of the dead."

Framed and in my office.

Be well.

ArchAngel · Jul 7, 2003

Quote from Ikspec:
Weren't you going to take the summer off, Harry?

I was kind if hoping he was taking the summer off to study English

dgabriel · Jul 7, 2003

Maybe. Depends on whose two lips.

harrytrader · Jul 7, 2003

Oh no it would be too easy to understand me hee hee

!

Quote from ArchAngel:

I was kind if hoping he was taking the summer off to study English

ElCubano · Jul 7, 2003

Quote from harrytrader:

"true value" ? don't confound a price mesure with value. a mesure can be false. If a price was always the true value there wouldn't need to have several terms except if you use mini-speak language or mini-truth hee hee ! If price was the true value we wouldn't have bubble haha !

If you reduce everything to their facial appearance then you are just a pack of meat.

........

marketsurfer · Jul 7, 2003

Quote from harrytrader:

At the height of the tulip bubble about 350 years ago, the rare Semper Augustus flower was worth 6 000 florins approximately 1 million dollar in today's money.

In 100 years the next generation would perhaps ask who would buy an internet dotcom ... or government bonds for 1 billion dollar whereas it was virtually in bankruptcy although nobody dare to tell this truth to the population like in any bubble

whoever thought they could sell the tulip for 1,100,000.00 . that is who would buy it for 1,000,000.00 . value is nothing more than perception---there is no such thing as "intrinsic" value.

surfer

opw · Jul 7, 2003

If there was such a thing as true value, then nothing would ever be sold.

IMO buyer and seller never agree on price, that is exactly the reason why one party is selling and the other is buying

Every time I hear about the tulip madness I become more proud of being Dutch.

Did we - the Dutch - invent madness, or just perfect it....