Bubble Quotes

[There are no fish swimming in Lakeview, and no bayou alligators, he said. The water bubbles with natural gas from broken mains and carries the detritus of a neighborhood to and fro. One neighbor refused to evacuate, and Hunter hasn't seen him. Still, he added, he hasn't found any corpses. At the Basin bar,] we'd sit there and solve all the world's problems, but with this, I just don't know where to begin, ... I don't know if this city will ever come back. - David Hunter

[So will it all end in tears? Will the 5-year boom that has seen average prices increase by 50 percent in the United States (and by that much in the past 12 months in Phoenix) prove to be a bubble? After all, Goldman Sachs reports,] Relative to per-capita GDP, a typical home in San Francisco now costs much more than one in London. ... Beware. - Robert Schiller

[On whether recent gains in housing prices have produce a] bubble... we certainly cannot rule out home price declines, especially in some local markets, these declines, were they to occur, likely would not have substantial macroeconomic implications. - Alan Greenspan

[Meanwhile, the financial froth of speculative bubbles--and their dangers--are another enduring legacy of the Greenspan era.] Irrational exuberance really is still with us... risk that in 2010 or even 2015, the stock market will be lower still in real, inflation-corrected terms, than it was in 2005. - Robert Shiller

[In any case, she leaves the biggest question unanswered. Hugh Hefner moves through the book in a bubble of graciousness, the perennial gentleman at the continual orgy.] He's the one person who never wronged me, never hurt me, and never treated me with anything less than absolute care... He allowed me to be a child in his midst. - Jennifer Saginor

[Greenspan] believes that the economy will be brisk enough to require more in the way of rate hikes if inflation is to be contained. At the same time, the Fed must be careful not to tighten so aggressively so that it does not risk bursting regional home price bubbles. - John Lonski

[Even with the changes in the market, many economists remain optimistic that the housing market is not a bubble waiting to burst.] We may see a flattening of the increase, but not much of a drop, ... The fundamentals remain strong: Employment is robust, and interest rates remain low. - Bob Walters

[But one observer expects a pause.] I suspect we're really reaching a bubble in tech stock conditions... It is a herd mentality. You run the risk of really being whipsawed here. - Peter Andersen