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throwaway873527today at 3:09 PM2 repliesview on HN

Interestingly, Charles Mackay, the author of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, was himself one of the most ardent cheerleaders for the Railway Mania [0] "urging people to put their money into the railways and pooh-poohing those who were concerned." and "He had become famous by mocking the bubbles of the past - but had rather less to say about the far more serious bubble that he himself had helped to inflate."[1]

[0] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1927396

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51311368


Replies

lstoddtoday at 9:03 PM

Helping to inflate a bubble is a valid strategy as long as you undestand the mechanics enough to organize a favourable exit.

I think we have lost a number of treatises on this exact subject since at least Egypt's old kingdom, 3000BC.

JackFrtoday at 5:20 PM

I happened to read Trollope's The Way We Live Now, which is a fantastic take on the railway mania, at the height of the dot com bubble. Really increased the enjoyment to read about it and see it unfold in real time.