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You choose one of several definitions you find on the web and call it the "standard definition," as if that made it a sort of axiom. Then you interpret its vag
by pg 16y ago
You choose one of several definitions you find on the web and call it the "standard definition," as if that made it a sort of axiom. Then you interpret its vague "considerably" as synonymous with "at all." But then you're one step away from your own reductio ad absurdum, because you can now prove that any random (upward) price fluctuation is a bubble, and that is just not how people use the word. Stock prices rise and fall with investor confidence, but not every rise is a bubble. The term "bubble" is reserved for really extreme cases.
Incidentally, I've found that when the conversation in a forum descends to arguments about the meanings of the words being used, it never rises back up to talking about ideas. So if you don't mind, I'm done with this one.
- bostonpete 16y ago> The term "bubble" is reserved for really extreme cases. Maybe so, but it doesn't tend to get tossed around until cases start to get extreme. There are a lot of rumblings that there's a bubble building here. Can you think of any examples in recent history when the rumblings of a bubble turned out to be hogwash? That said, recent history also suggest that the rumblings of bubbliciousness tend to precede the ultimate burst by a good couple of years and the lead up to the burst has been where the most frantic run up takes place, so when bubble rumblings start, that might actually be the best time to get into a market... :-)
- netcan 16y agoIn this case, I don't think talking about definition is inevitably useless. Defining could be determining characteristics of a bubble and figuring out how to recognize one. It's consequences (bursting) are, I think, not under dispute.