Fresh off the press. From Tulips, to DogCom, to Bitcoin to AI. What could possibly go wrong.... again?

Dutch Tulipmania

Tulipmania, was a period during the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century when the prices of tulip bulbs soared to extraordinarily high levels, creating an economic (speculative - gambling) bubble. This bubble eventually burst, leading to a rapid decline in tulip bulb prices and causing financial ruin for many investors who had speculated on the rising prices.

Tulips were introduced to the Netherlands from the Ottoman Empire in the late 16th century and quickly became a popular and fashionable commodity due to their vibrant colors and unique patterns. As the demand for tulips grew, so did their prices, and they became a status symbol among the Dutch elite.

The height of Tulipmania occurred between 1634 and 1637 when the prices of tulip bulbs reached unprecedented levels. Some rare and highly sought-after tulip varieties were reportedly sold for prices equivalent to the cost of a luxurious house in Amsterdam. The market for tulip bulbs was fueled by speculators who bought bulbs with the expectation that their prices would continue to rise, allowing them to sell them later for a profit.

In February 1637, the tulip bulb market suddenly collapsed as prices started to fall rapidly. There are several theories as to why this happened, including an outbreak of bubonic plague, which may have caused a shift in priorities for the Dutch population, or simply a realization among investors that tulip prices had become unsustainably high. As prices plummeted, many investors were left with bulbs worth only a fraction of what they had paid for them, leading to significant financial losses.

Tulipmania is often cited as one of the earliest examples of a speculative economic bubble and serves as a cautionary tale for the potential dangers of irrational exuberance and speculative investing. It has been studied and referenced in discussions of financial market behavior, asset price bubbles, and the psychology of investing.

Some argued that although tulip mania may not have constituted an economic or speculative bubble because it was gambled on by wealthy few, it was nonetheless traumatic to the Dutch for other reasons: "Even though the financial crisis affected very few, the shock of tulipmania was considerable. A whole network of values was thrown into doubt." In the 17th century, it was unimaginable to most people that something as common as a flower could be worth so much more money than most people earned in a year. The idea that the prices of flowers that grow only in the summer could fluctuate so wildly in the winter, threw into chaos the very understanding of "value."

Many of the sources telling of the woes of tulip mania, such as the anti-speculative pamphlets that were later reported by Beckmann and Mackay, have been cited as evidence of the extent of the economic damage. These pamphlets were not written by victims of a bubble, but were primarily religiously motivated. The upheaval was viewed as a perversion of the moral order—proof that "concentration on the earthly, rather than the heavenly flower could have dire consequences".

Nearly a century later, during the crash of the Mississippi Company and the South Sea Company in about 1720, tulip mania appeared in the satires of these manias. When Beckmann first described tulip mania in the 1780s, he compared it to the failing lotteries of the time. In Goldgar's view, even many modern popular works about financial markets, such as Burton Malkiel's A Random Walk Down Wall Street (1973) and John Kenneth Galbraith's A Short History of Financial Euphoria (1990; written soon after the crash of 1987.), used the tulip mania as a lesson in morality.

Tulip mania became a popular reference during the dot-com bubble of 1995–2001 and the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–2010. In 2013, Nout Wellink, former president of the Dutch Central Bank, described Bitcoin as "worse than the tulip mania", adding, "At least then you got a tulip, now you get nothing.
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The Mississippi Bubble

The Mississippi Bubble was an economic bubble that took place in France during the early 18th century, between 1716 and 1720. It was centered around the Mississippi Company, a corporation that had been granted a monopoly on trade and development in the French territories in North America. The company was founded by Scottish economist and financier John Law, who was also responsible for the creation of France’s first paper currency, the livre.

The Mississippi Bubble had its origins in the financial crisis that France was facing after the War of the Spanish Succession. The French government was heavily in debt, and the economy was suffering from a lack of confidence in the French currency. John Law proposed a solution: create a new paper currency backed by the wealth of France’s colonial territories, specifically the Mississippi region in North America, and use this currency to pay off the national debt. To accomplish this, Law established the Mississippi Company and took control of the French national bank.

The Mississippi Company’s shares quickly became popular among investors, and its value skyrocketed as people bought into the promise of vast wealth from the exploitation of the New World. This led to a speculative frenzy, with the share price of the Mississippi Company increasing dramatically. At its peak, the company’s market value was larger than the entire French economy.

In 1720, however, the bubble began to burst. Doubts arose about the actual profitability of the Mississippi Company and its ability to generate the promised wealth from the French colonies. Additionally, the increase in the money supply due to the issuance of paper currency led to rampant inflation. As confidence in the company and the currency waned, share prices plummeted, and many investors lost their fortunes.
The collapse of the Mississippi Bubble had severe consequences for the French economy. The financial crisis that followed led to a deep recession, and public distrust in paper currency and financial institutions persisted for years. The Mississippi Bubble, along with the contemporary South Sea Bubble in England, serves as another example of the dangers of speculative investing and the potential for economic bubbles to cause widespread financial turmoil.

In Paris, Law founded a bank with authority to issue notes. Later he combined with his bank of the Louisiana Company, which had exclusive privileges to develop the vast French territories in the Mississippi Valley of North America. Law’s plan worked well for a few years but ran afoul of speculative complications and political intrigue, neither of which were directly attributable to Law. As the author of the program, popularly known as the “Mississippi Bubble,” Law was responsible and was forced to flee France in 1720. He died in Venice, a poor man.

Mississippi Bubble, a financial scheme in 18th-century France that triggered a speculative frenzy and ended in financial collapse. The scheme was engineered by John Law, a Scottish adventurer, economic theorist, and financial wizard who was a friend of the regent, the Duke d’Orléans. In 1716 Law established the Banque Générale, a bank with the authority to issue notes. A year later he established the Compagnie d’Occident (“Company of the West&rdquo and obtained for it exclusive privileges to develop the vast French territories in the Mississippi River valley of North America. Law’s company also soon monopolized the French tobacco and African slave trades, and by 1719 the Compagnie des Indes (“Company of the Indies&rdquo, as it had been renamed, held a complete monopoly of France’s colonial trade. Law also took over the collection of French taxes and the minting of money; in effect, he controlled both the country’s foreign trade and its finances.

Given the potential for profits involved, public demand for shares in the Compagnie des Indes increased sharply, sending the price for a share from 500 to 18,000 livres, which was out of all proportion to earnings. By 1719 Law had issued approximately 625,000 stock shares, and he soon afterward merged the Banque Générale with the Compagnie des Indes. Law hoped to retire the vast public debt accumulated during the later years of Louis XIV’s reign by selling his company’s shares to the public in exchange for state-issued public securities, or billets d’état, which consequently also rose sharply in value. A frenzy of wild speculation ensued that led to a general stock-market boom across Europe.

The French government took advantage of this situation by printing increased amounts of paper money, which was readily accepted by the state’s creditors because it could be used to buy more shares of the Compagnie. This went on until the excessive issue of paper money stimulated galloping inflation, and both the paper money and the billets d’état began to lose their value. Meanwhile the expected profits from the company’s colonial ventures were slow to materialize, and the intricate linking of the company’s stock with the state’s finances ended in complete disaster in 1720, when the value of the shares plummeted, causing a general stock market crash in France and other countries. Though the crash was not directly attributable to Law, he was the obvious scapegoat and was forced to flee France in December 1720. The enormous debts of his company and bank were soon afterward consolidated and taken over by the state, which raised taxes in order to pay it back.
Although John Law’s ambitious financial endeavors ultimately ended in failure and disgrace, his innovative ideas and practices had a lasting impact on the development of modern finance, banking, and monetary policy.
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China’s state media warn of AI market bubble triggered by ChatGPT frenzy

An article published by the state-run Economic Daily cautions investors against chasing the ChatGPT hype with no regard to a potential bubble. The article says some stocks have ‘jumped in leaps and bounds’ despite not having made many AI breakthroughs

A Chinese state-run newspaper has warned of a “market bubble” and “excessive hype” surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) technology such as ChatGPT, the intelligent chatbot developed by US start-up OpenAI that has been making waves around the world.

The article, titled “Bubble prevention needed while promoting AI”, was published on Monday by the Economic Daily – a newspaper founded by the State Council, China’s cabinet, and supervised by the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda department.

“While capital is chasing the ChatGPT concept, it needs to pay attention to avoid running into a bubble,” the article said, adding that some domestic stocks related to AI and large language models had soared by more than 50 per cent in the past two months.

Stocks in China fell from a five-week high after the article was published, with a gauge of technology stocks sliding 3.8 per cent, the biggest loser among 10 industry groups in the CSI 300 Index. Hong Kong’s market is closed for the Easter holiday and will reopen on Tuesday.

Chinese companies have been touting plans to develop technology similar to ChatGPT, which was launched in November but is officially unavailable in China. They include Big Tech firms such as web search operator Baidu, which unveiled its Ernie Bot last month, and e-commerce giant and Post owner Alibaba Group Holding, which is running a beta test of its Tongyi Qianwen bot.

Shanghai-listed cybersecurity firm 360 Security Technology on Sunday began inviting users to register for an internal test of its ChatGPT rival “360 Smart Brain”, after it told investors in February that it had been investing in ChatGPT-related technologies since 2020.

Smaller firms have also jumped on the bandwagon.

Shenzhen-listed printer and lottery technology developer Hongbo Co, for example, said in February that it was “developing and testing” ChatGPT-related products. It launched a chatbot in late March that only allowed 20 new users to register each day during the beta test.

Shares of the firm have surged by more than 70 per cent since February.

“Some companies have not made many breakthroughs in related technologies … but their stock prices have already jumped in leaps and bounds,” the Economic Daily article said, without naming any firm.
“Regulators should enhance monitoring and crackdowns of behaviours aimed at hyping up popular concepts and manipulating stock prices, and create an orderly market with standards for information disclosure, to support the long-term development of AI,” the article said.

State media previously issued similar warnings. In February, state news agency Xinhua published an article calling for “bubble prevention” and “patience” amid the ChatGPT frenzy in the country.

“Although the technological paradigm shift brought about by ChatGPT has given the company a large user base, there is no mature commercial application,” the article said, adding that such technologies may cause social problems, including fake information and plagiarism.

China Science Daily, a newspaper backed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other top research bodies in the country, published an article on Friday, cautioning that ChatGPT may corrupt, rather than improve users’ moral judgment, citing a study by German and Danish researchers that appeared last week in the journal Scientific Reports.

Amid the global fervour around ChatGPT, several mainland and Hong Kong-based AI experts also joined Tesla’s Elon Musk and other tech veterans worldwide in signing an open letter, calling for a pause in development of AI technologies more advanced than GPT-4.

Despite the debate, Wang Xiaochuan, founder and former CEO of Chinese search engine Sogou announced on Monday the founding of his start-up Baichuan Zhineng, which aims to “create China’s best large language model by the end of the year”.

His move followed the launch of an AI start-up by Wang Huiwen, co-founder of food delivery giant Meituan, which had raised US$280 million as of February 18, according to start-up database PitchBook.
Ben Jiang contributed reporting

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