The World According to Me

I have been doing a lot of reading in advance of my trip to the Netherlands and Belgium. I’ve been finding the history, particularly of Amsterdam, fascinating. From being part of the Holy Roman Empire to fighting for independence from Spain, only to be occupied by France before becoming a monarchy and growing into a parliamentary democracy. Not to mention the brief occupation by Nazi Germany.

The Dutch were among the first to pioneer international trade with the Dutch East and West India Companies, trading in spices, produce and unfortunately, slaves. They were one of the world’s first sea-faring superpowers.

But to me, one of the most interesting bits of their history has to be an economic anomaly often called tulip mania. The tulip was introduced to Europe in the mid 15th century from the Ottoman Empire and became very popular with wealthy merchants, who made them a status symbol. They competed for the rarest tulips until the prices were sky high. The funny part is the most coveted bulbs were for tulips that had lines and fluted petals that were caused by a disease.

When the average income was 150 florins, a single rare bulb might cost as much as 1000 florins. They were exchanged for land, livestock and houses. They were even traded on the stock exchange, which encouraged all members of Dutch society to speculate in tulip bulbs, many selling their other possessions to do so. Some made a lot of money, but others lost everything. Starting in about 1623, by 1627 traders could no longer get inflated prices for their bulbs. As you may guess the bubble began to burst. This led to a widespread economic decline (depression) for years.

And here you thought the Beanie Baby craze was bad.