Comments on: Can You Name These 14 Bubbles?

By: jc

jc — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:03:25 +0000

BR
We really need a “name the next bubble” contest.

My submission is green energy/smart grid. Big companies are already climbing all over each other to get at the US pot of gold (GE, Cisco, IBM). Even defense contractors are diving in!
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/defense-contractors-pursue-the-smart-grid

The US grid is outdated anyway and this will improve energy efficiency and can shift energy sourcing to North America.

I didn’t think it would be big enough but now I feel that the utilities will be able to get rates cases thru that will use US energy grant money as a multiplier to get really sizeable projects rolling. The beauty of utility funding is it is non discretionary funding, if you don’t pay they can cut service so consumers will be forced to fund the green energy bubble – with US priming the pump. The big companies will hype their participation in this freeforall and that will create a tech type bubble.

It’s enhanced by the feel good effect of being “green”

By: aitrader

aitrader — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:26:51 +0000

@ Darkchocolate

I think you might be referring to the “Panic of 1893″, which in retrospect is viewed to have been caused by excessive speculation in railroad building. I guess you could liken it to that generation’s tech crash of 2001.

The “panic of 1873″ and the “panic of 1893″ are considered book ends to a 20-year period of low economic growth by many historians that is often called the Long Depression.

As I’ve mentioned, my read on global trends makes me much more pessimistic than our esteemed blog host here. I think we would be ‘lucky’ to merely suffer a Long Depression. My opinion is that we have entered the beginning of a period much worse than that.

By: Jack Gavin

Jack Gavin — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:13:25 +0000

Who said these were the only bubbles? Who said the “bubbles” cited were bubbles? I didn’t know that lemmings still existed.

By: Darkchocolate

Darkchocolate — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:34:28 +0000

In Washington state there was a real estate bubble that left us some really nice brick buildings in towns like Bellingham and Port Townsend in the late 1880s. I think it had to do with speculation on where the rail road would meet the ships coming in from the pacific. Was it more wide spread than just here?

By: willid3

willid3 — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:15:43 +0000

aitrader, yes you are correct the original term panic is what depressions are called today. the origination of the problem was that houses in Europe had been sky rocketing, and jobs were being sent away because of a cheap upstart (us). and then it went from there to the US.

By: noilifcram

noilifcram — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:17:25 +0000

@marquis: I don’t think bubbles occur at an increasing rate rather than history having a steady rate of decay; forgetting past events of lesser importance.

Oil speculation in Ancient Greece anyone? http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/thales.htm

By: aitrader

aitrader — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:47:06 +0000

@willid3

I think you mean the panic of 1873 that resulted in a 20-year plus span of low economic activity. IMO we should be so lucky in light of current trends.

By: willid3

willid3 — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:39:54 +0000

wasn’t there a bubble in like 1870′s that ended up being the long depression (originally it was the great depression until the one in the 30s came along). seems like i read it was housing in Europe that had gone over the top (sort of like here) and their jobs started disappearing (sort of like here).

By: marquis

marquis — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:15:29 +0000

Thank you Constantnormal.

By: constantnormal

constantnormal — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:13:00 +0000

@MEH

Yeah, he utterly fails when he tries to predict technology advances (as does everyone, including sci-fi authors, and especially scientists and technologists), but as for his social science predictions, his accuracy has been uncanny thus far.