The crisis dejour – throughout time, market segments have followed a crowd mindset. The more popular a market gets, the more individuals want to buy in, and the higher the prices are pushed up.

This mindset has occured throughout history and the cycles can be studied consistently. Professor Watson teaches entrepreneurial marketing and the role of the market economy. Regardless of whether we want to think about recent banking markets which have Broke, these events are not new. They have consistently occurred throughout time.

One of the most discussed historical markets that burst was Amsterdam’s Tuplip economy. We can analyzie the Tulipmania of the tulip market that burst in 1637 as a popularly reported historical account of a economy that overheated.

Tulips were originally introduced from Turkey in the early 16th century. As new “varieties” of tulip bulbs were discovered, competition intensified and their prices soared. One honestly rare variety was the Semper Augustus which reached values in excess of 1,000 florins per single bulb in 1623. This price was more than six times the average annual wage.

This industry mania continued – and 10 years later the value had increased another ten times. At the market peak, the value of a single Semper Augustus bulb reached 10,000 florins – the value of what it cost to buy a house in central Amsterdam at the time.

With time the market peaked and there was no-one remaining who still wanted to buy these bulbs at such high prices. Within weeks, the market value crashed and thousands of people were left in financial ruin.

Throughout history – we have witnessed similar bubbles reoccur. As the crowd mentality continues to get more hyped, those contrary views become less and less popular to be heard. Are any of the recent market bubbles any different? In modern environment of PC speech, are the contrarian voices that stand up for character, ethics, and integrity any different? Throughout time, these contrarian voices have been demeaned and ignored. But the market for products and the market for principles has a way of always correcting itself from the heat of the crowd – and those extremist views tend to have their bubbles burst as the neccessary correction occurs. Today’s market is no different.