The Good Bubble
Nobody, wise or unwise, knew or now knows when depressions are due or overdue.–JKG, The Great Crash 1929 I cozied round the fire with two books during the winter. Two books on The Great Depression. One, The Great Crash by John Kenneth Galbraith; the other, 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History – and How It Shattered a Nation by Andrew Ross Sorkin. The backdrop for anyone reading these books would probably be the same at most any point at time – a nagging feeling that the stock market is exuberantly closing in on a correction, or worse. And that our common days will see soup at least a little thinner. The always-around-the corner feeling of nearing contagion is sharp just now, as 2025 saw a hellbent parade of investment in Generative AI, with promises but not proof of a big return. There must be some message to be learned in history, right? The radio stocks of the 1920s bear some likeness to AI, hyperscaler and data center equipment stocks of the 2020s. The era saw...