To crank, or not to crank.

I have a friend who started warning me about the eminent collapse of the American economy about 25 years ago.

His reasons were many and varied, but they were well thought out, logical and rational. He is an educated man, with common sense, who ran a business in Bend for years and sold it for a profit.

25 years later, the reasons for an eminent collapse of the American economy are different, but just as compelling.

Someday, he'll be right. But as John Maynard Keynes is said to have said, "Someday, we'll all be dead."

When I first stumbled across the first BendBubbleBlog, it only confirmed what I'd been thinking for a couple of years. But in a way, the purpose of that first blog was to argue that there was a bubble, in the face of seeming prosperity. When the founder of the blog quit, (was that BEM?), he made the logically consistent point that the bubble was proved, and there was no further point talking about it.

As I've said before, either you think there is a bubble, and there is no real way to reason out the ways and wherefores, or you still think you can reason them out, which means in your heart of heart, you don't really believe in a bubble.

Still, with the jobs reports coming in strong, the stock market reaching new highs, I find myself slipping into the 'crank' camp. Because I keep looking at the local conditions and I can't imagine we are going to escape unscathed.

I've always thought the stock market was a different phenomena -- it goes up because people want it to. I've always thought the national economy was likely to shake off the effect of the housing bubble, and I've always thought there was a good chance that Bend would escape dire consequences simply by wearing blinders and bulling on through.

I guess where it stands for me, is one more major economic shock -- stock market falling, terrorist attack, China pulling the rug out from under us, some 'Black Swan' event, something like that, and we are in big trouble.

Otherwise, we'll just humbug and huff and puff and change the subject and look for the silver lining and so on....

Because, despite all the good reasons to be careful, humans have a great capacity to just keep on truckin....