November 10, 2009

I dare you to think about the horrors of a world with no bubbles.

Sir Frederic Mishkin wrote “Not all bubbles present a risk to the economy” November 11. I go one step further and hold that it is the absence of bubbles that would drive the economy into the ground, in just a few decades, and that what most drives the economy forward is precisely the probability of finding yourself a nice little bubble to float up on.

I dare you at FT to think about the horrors which a world with no bubbles would imply. Ah you want controlled bubbles? Are you going to use bubble rating agencies for that? Good luck! What I want are financial regulations that do not discriminate against risk and that are willing to risk the bubbles instead of embracing the certainty of staying on ground or even underground.

I do not want the regulators worry so much about the crisis, but instead worry about how to increase our possibilities that the bubbles takes us somewhere we want to go.