From Wikipedia:

Tulip mania or tulipomania (Dutch names include: tulpenmanie, tulpomanie, tulpenwoede, tulpengekte and bollengekte) was a period in the Dutch Golden Age during which contract prices for bulbs of the recently introduced tulip reached extraordinarily high levels and then suddenly collapsed.^[2] At the peak of tulip mania, in February 1637, some single tulip bulbs sold for more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. It is generally considered the first recorded speculative bubble (or economic bubble)

My insight: The analogies with fiat money seem very real indeed. The worst thing is that people at as high levels as the German government may be fixing the books to make short term ends meet.

From Zerohedge:

As usual, the most surreal news of the day, perhaps week, is saved for Friday night, when we learn that Germany has magically raised over a quarter of its total EFSF obligation of €211 billion by way of what is essentially magic. The Telegraph reports that “Germany is €55bn richer than it previously thought because of an accounting error at state-owned bank Hypo Real Estate Holding. The mistake at “bad bank” FMS Wertmanagement, happened because collateral for derivatives wasn’t netted between the asset and liability side, an FMS spokesman said. As a result, FMS will only contribute about €161bn to Germany’s debt this year, down from €216.5bn in 2010.” Another way of representing the error is that it is equal to a ridiculous 1% of the country’s debt to GDP ratio. “Germany’s 2010 debt-to-GDP ratio also drops, to 83.2% from the previous 84.2%, a finance ministry spokesman said.” In other words, the modern world, best characterized by the imploding fiat ponzi, has discovered a way to raise capital (electronic, naturally) courtesy of CDS bookmarking errors. And now, we have seen it all.

Read the rest here