Bookstaber's gold bubble

A suitably polemic piece on gold from Rick Bookstaber tonight that starts this way:

I am not going to spend time here talking about how the price of gold is off-the-wall, that it is not just a bubble in the making, but a bubble waiting to burst. I don’t want to waste your time on that point. We all know it is a bubble.

Bookstaber then goes on to talk about the herd/mob mentality and muses on its origins (covering a lot of the same ground that Ritholtz did in his well-written You're a monkey article) checks in on Paulson and Soros along the way and then ends in this style:

The very notion of mobs and herds evokes a certain spontaneity. But with the gold bubble, we are moving on to a concept of herding by appointment. Everyone seems to be happy in agreeing that this is a bubble, and we are all going to participate in this bubble in a rational, genteel way. We have all decided that this is going to be a number one hit, a Top Ten bubble. Though we might want to ask who is leading this herd, because my bet is they will be stepping aside and cheering us over the cliff.

Well worth checking out the full note, linked right here. No matter if you agree or not (I don't), it's good brainfood. We like Bookstaber.

Bookstaber on regulation and capitalism

Rick Bookstaber is always worth a read, but this time he's penned a thoughtful piece entitled "Regulation in Defense of Capitalism" that is definitely worth your time. As well as the argument, it's nice to remember (amidst the disgusting behaviour and greed-laden screw-you attitude of today's WallSt) the true benefits of capitalism when it's done well. Bookstaber's asides in this article are the material of prompt.

It's tempting to paste the last paragraph by way of a sample but this time I desist, as really you need to see the whole argument building in context of the full post. Go read.