Delirios populares extraordinarios y la locura de las masas

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of the Masses, first published in 1841, describes three historical moments of rampant speculation in England, France and Holland, which occurred between 1635 and 1720, which bear an extraordinary similarity to current events in the financial world: - The Mississippi Project; - The bubble of the South Sea Company; - Tulipomania or tulip mania. The opportunity to buy rapidly appreciating goods at low prices became available to large numbers of people from all walks of life, who rose to wealth as quickly as they lost it afterwards. The three stories that Charles Mackay tells in a very entertaining way are valuable materials to understand the way people think and make decisions. One of the main reasons that the interest of his book endures is that the phenomena he described at the time continue to be repeated today with the necessary variations of time, place and circumstance. For this reason, today's economic analysts resort to these stories to explain current behavior towards money and the markets.