Take 75 seconds to watch this Ikea ad? How was it not on the Super Bowl? (Thanks, Mel!)
I once had the opportunity to write this foreword to Charles McKay’s 1841 classic, Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. The iconic madness? “Tulipmania” in 17th Century Holland. Yet according to this just-published research by Anne Goldgar, the story that’s been passed down over the years has been blown way out of proportion.
Still: one tulip bulb selling for as much as “a well appointed house”? Maybe not that far out of proportion.
Just not a devastating bubble that ruined masses of people — anymore than whoever today buys a signed urinal for more than $1 million is likely to be ruined if it falls in value (and relatively few people do).
It was more like Beanie Babies.
Oh, and by the way? We are under attack. We are losing. Putin is winning. As Tom Friedman puts it: This is code red.
