I would kill to be able to string words together like this.From Gongloff @ HuffPo:
Financial bubbles are like bad relationships. You often can't tell for sure that you're in one until it's over.
But it's usually pretty easy to see the warning signs, of both bad
relationships and bubbles, and brace yourself for the inevitable bout of
weeping and binge-eating.
Which brings us to Facebook's IPO, and to The Huffington Post's latest Pulitzer-eligible feature, the Tech Bubble Death Watch.
As you have perhaps heard by now, the social network is about to dump
a truckload of shares on the public, in an offering that will value it
at more than $100 billion, a number most sentient humans agree is
optimistic, to put it charitably. And yet people cannot get enough of
this stock.
As you have also maybe heard, everybody and their grandmother thinks
this is the sign of a new bubble in technology companies. And you know
what? So do we. You can't always trust everybody and their grandmother,
but sometimes they are absolutely right.
So this seems like the ideal time to launch what we're calling the
Tech Bubble Death Watch. Here's how it works: Using a finely tuned
analytical approach (guessing), we assign a numerical value between 1
and 5 to the day's big tech-bubble news. Higher numbers indicate a
greater risk that we are in the insane-frenzy phase of the tech bubble.
Lower number numbers mean your retirement money is safe for the time
being.
So what number does Facebook's IPO deserve? A full-on five. It's just
too big of a target for anything lower. This is a watershed moment for
the bubble, the only one you can be sure that everybody and their
grandmother is aware of.
Sure, sure, you can argue that this is
more likely the beginning of the bubble than the end. The stock could
well tank tomorrow in its first day of trading, a sign investors are
being smarter than we think. Or it could pop for one day, then fall for a
while and be propped up by bargain hunters -- again, somewhat rational
behavior.
But if we are indeed in a new tech bubble, then this moment will be
the one we all remember, like Netscape and Pets.com in Tech Bubble 1.0.
Also, how the heck can we launch a new feature like this with
anything less than a five? It is decided. And it is arbitrary, we know,
so save your hateful emails.
Let's go to the evidence....MORE
