[theBuckwheat]

I have observed that so many of the people I correspond with who were so quick to be happy when they could fret about a “housing bubble”, or previously an “asset bubble”, each having the mandatory “tipping point”, have not been nearly as interested in applying the same criteria to the rapid run-up in the price of oil and gasoline.

This tells me that their original scolding of the rest of us was not entirely based in economics, but maybe was really a projection of some other personal issue, like maybe they were secretly cheering what they hoped was the impending disaster. For stocks and real estate, the “disaster” would not be in the run-up in prices, but in the “collapse” that would follow. For oil, the “disaster” is high and ever-higher prices. Any collapse in price would only be good news for the economy. In previous asset bubbles the phrase “tipping point” was mentioned so often it got worn out. In this bubble, I have not seen the phrase used once.

[mr_hammer]

” have observed that so many of the people I correspond with who were so quick to be happy when they could fret about a “housing bubble”, or previously an “asset bubble”, each having the mandatory “tipping point”, have not been nearly as interested in applying the same criteria to the rapid run-up in the price of oil and gasoline.”

...absolutely not (at least for me).

Let's pilfer Greenspan’s term...irrational exuberance. When home prices escalate 20% a year and “NO DOC” loans are granted and “interest only loans” were making up an ever increasing % of loans written, you have a bubble.

...And the run up in the price of crude, almost doubling without a doubling of demand would indicate something wholly irrational is going on.

Recent Bubble
Tech Stocks in the 90’s
Real-Estate and Commodities recent past years
Oil now!

See a pattern?