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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.

At the peak of tulip mania, in March 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), although some researchers have noted that the Kipper- und Wipperzeit episode in 1619–22, a Europe-wide chain of debasement of the metal content of coins to fund warfare, featured mania-like similarities to a bubble. The term "tulip mania" is now often used metaphorically to refer to any large economic bubble (when asset prices deviate from intrinsic values).

The International Financial Services Centre in Dublin

The economy of the Republic of Ireland is a highly developed knowledge economy, focused on services in high-tech, life sciences, financial services and agribusiness, including agrifood. Ireland is an open economy (3rd on the Index of Economic Freedom), and ranks first for high-value foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. In the global GDP per capita tables, Ireland ranks 2nd of 192 in the IMF table and 4th of 187 in the World Bank ranking. Among OECD nations, Ireland has a highly efficient and strong social security system; social expenditure stood at roughly 13.4% of GDP.

Following a period of continuous growth at an annual level from 1984 to 2007, the post-2008 Irish financial crisis severely affected the economy, compounding domestic economic problems related to the collapse of the Irish property bubble. Ireland first experienced a short technical recession from Q2-Q3 2007, followed by a recession from Q1 2008 – Q4 2009. (Full article...)

"One school of thought-influential in shaping the deregulatory policies that played a role in the current crisis-argued that the competitive equilibrium approach of microeconomics provided the correct foundations for macroeconomics. This school, based on the neoclassical model, was sometimes referred to as the "New Classical" school, or the "Chicago School," because some of its high priests taught at the University of Chicago. Because they believed that markets are always efficient, they contended that one should not be worried about economic fluctuations, such as the current recession-it was simply the efficient adjustment of the economy to shocks (such as changes in technology) coming from the outside. It was an approach that had strong policy prescriptions-a minimal role for government.

Thought they based their analyses on the neoclassical (Walrasian) models, they made a further simplification that all individuals were identical. This was called the "representative agent" model. But if all individuals are identical, there can be no borrowing or lending-that would simply be moving money from the left pocket to the right pocket. There can be no bankruptcy. While I argued earlier that problems of imperfect information are central to an understanding of modern economics, in their models there can be no information asymmetries, where one person knows something that someone else doesn't. Any information asymmetry would reflect intense schizophrenia, hardly consistent with their other assumptions of full rationality. Their models have nothing to say about the critical issues that are at play in the current crisis: so what if one gives the bankers an extra trillion dollars or two? In the model, the bankers and the workers are the same people. Key policy debates were simply assumed away. For instance, the representative agent model precludes any discussion of distribution. In a sense, views of values (including the view that the distribution of income is not important) are embedded in the very formulation of their analyses."

—Joseph Stiglitz, Freefall, 2010

• ... that topics on Recess Therapy have included the economy, climate change, and peeing your pants?
• ... that the Lebon Patisserie & Café in Istanbul closed in 2022, after 212 years of business, due to the high increase of monthly rent?
• ... that Svalbard Minute by Minute, a 221-hour-long television broadcast, is credited with increasing tourism in Svalbard by 25 percent?
• ... that Francois Massaquoi, who studied economics at New York University, later led the Lofa Defense Force during the First Liberian Civil War?
• ... that Peachtree Arcade, a shopping arcade in the U.S. state of Georgia, was conceived after a local businessman visited the Cleveland Arcade?
• ... that according to Jimmy Carter, "more of [Georgia's] business was probably conducted in the Henry Grady than in the state capitol"?

June 4:

• 1936 - Vince Camuto, an American fashion designer and businessman, co-founder of Nine West, was born on this day.

• ...that French economist A.R.J. Turgot (pictured) served as the intendant of the genéralité of Limoges from 1761 to 1774?

• ...that in economics, the monetary base is defined as the portion of the commercial banks' reserves that are maintained in accounts with their central bank plus the total currency circulating in the public?

• ...that Friedrich Hayek was appointed as a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom on the advice of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher?

• ...that Gunnar Myrdal, the 1974 co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics was married Alva Myrdal, a Swedish diplomat who won the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize?

• ...that Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Daron Acemoglu was the 2005 recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal?

• ...that Gold Fixing is the procedure by which the price of gold is set on the London market by the five members of the London Bullion Market Association?

• ...that the postal services of Canada, Finland and the United Kingdom have their own dedicated address to which letters to Santa Claus pleading their good behavior and requesting gifts?

Wikinews Economy and business portal

• July 21: Technological University Dublin senior lecturer Dr Lorcan Sirr speaks to Wikinews on housing market in Ireland
• July 15: California governor signs new state budget, eligible Californians to get stimulus payments
• July 4: 130 OECD countries agree to back global corporate tax rate
• June 30: 'Each makes the other more difficult to recover from': University of Sussex professor L. Alan Winters speaks to Wikinews on trade, COVID-19, Brexit
• June 16: Wikinews interviews Victor Kline, leader of newly registered The New Liberals party in Australia
• April 23: Irish Finance Minister Donohoe criticises OECD's global minimum corporate tax rate
• April 17: People protest in Berlin against German Court overturning five-year rent cap
• March 5: Chancellor Rishi Sunak announces UK budget 2021
• February 10: Disney to shut down Blue Sky Studios, animation studio behind 'Ice Age'
• January 24: World Trade Organization declares US tariff hike illegal, rules in South Korea's favour