Mania and the Economic Meltdown of Society
by Barnabe Geisweiller
During a period of the Dutch Golden Age prices of tulip bulbs reached extraordinary levels. Single tulip bulbs were bought and sold for small fortunes, making some very wealthy. It is widely considered the world’s first speculative bubble and, like all bubbles, it suddenly collapsed. The period is popularly referred to as “tulip mania.”
There have been numerous manias since the tulip craze of the 17th century. Recent bubbles include the dot-com bubble and many real estate bubbles around the world. In bubbles products and assets trade at considerably inflated values compared to their intrinsic ones.
Today, we are at the end of a period of wealth and excess like the Roaring Twenties. This time it is the value of money itself that has been distorted, and the pursuit and concentration of wealth without a relative productive merit to society that has reached the point of mania.
We have (Read More...)
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There has been one member of Congress that has been willing to stand up to the Federal Reserve more than any other, and now that it has been revealed that Barack Obama’s “financial reform” plan would give the Federal Reserve almost dictatorial power over the U.S. economy, Ron Paul is hopping mad.
