There are three kinds of “bubbles” –  a term often used loosely when asset prices rise a great deal and then fall sharply, without an obvious corresponding shift in “fundamentals“.

1. A short-run bubble.  Think about 17th century Dutch Tulip Mania: spectacular, probably disruptive, but not a major reason for the decline of the Netherlands as a global power. 
2. A distorting bubble.  In this case, the increase in asset prices contributes to a reallocation of resources across sectors.  Think of the Dot-com Bubble: fortunes were made and lost, the collapse was scary to many, and – at the end of the day – you’ve built the Internet and some good companies.
3. A political bubble.  Here rising asset prices generate resources that can be fed into the political process, through bribes, building politicians’ careers, and lobbying of all kinds.  Bubbles in Emerging Markets often generate resources that impact the political process, sometimes in good ways – but most often in bad ways, which eventually contribute to a collapse.

Larry Summers seems to think we are dealing with the consequences of bubble type #1.  In his speech last week, “the bubble” is a modern deus ex machina – it explains why we have a crisis, but there is no explanation of where this bubble came from, what exactly was bubbling, and what changes this bubble brought to the real economy or to our politics. Continue reading “After Peak Finance: Larry Summers’ Bubble” →