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Link:\\xa0https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/06/against-tulip-subsidies/

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Imagine a little kingdom with a quaint custom: when a man likes a woman, he offers her a tulip; if she accepts, they are married shortly thereafter. A couple who marries sans tulip is considered to be living in sin; no other form of proposal is appropriate or accepted.

One day, a Dutch trader comes to the little kingdom. He explains that his homeland\\xa0also\\xa0has a quaint custom involving tulips: they\\xa0speculate on them, bidding the price up to stratospheric levels.\\xa0Why, in the Netherlands, a tulip can go for ten times more than the average worker earns in a year! The trader is pleased to find a new source of bulbs, and offers the people of the kingdom a few guilders per tulip, which they happily accept.

Soon other Dutch traders show up and start a bidding war. The price of tulips goes up, and up, and up; first dozens of guilders, then hundreds. Tulip-growers make a fortune, but everyone else is less pleased. Suitors wishing to give a token of their love find themselves having to invest their entire life savings \\u2013 with no guarantee that the woman will even say yes! Soon, some of the poorest people are locked out of marriage and family-raising entirely.