Monday, June 30, 2008

Janszen says next bubble will be in energy

A "bubble cycle" instead of a business cycle... house prices to revert to trend and fall 38% from peak... a $12 trillion gap to plug with fresh securities in a different sector as the current bubble collapses... government legislation to clear the way for the speculative rush... $12 tn + an extra $8 tn = $20 tn... it's going to be... ALTERNATIVE ENERGY.

Read iTulip founder Eric Janszen's Harpers article.

"Caloriefornia or bust!" Any views from energy investment specialists (e.g. Nick Drew)?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The future is getting clearer. The current inflation will turn to deflation as demand contracts and people get sacked. Governments will panic and try to recover from it by dropping interest rates. That's where clarity stops - either (a) they will fail and we'll get a depression, or (b) they will succeed all too well and we'll get mesoinflation (not perhaps Zimbabwean hyperinflation, but much bigger than we face currently). If no-one has a prior claim, "mesoinflation" is mine own coining.

Anonymous said...

Oh drat, someone has coined the word-

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2008/3/3/23330/68363

- but with a different meaning. So what would be a good word for inflation higher than now, or indeed than the 70s, but less than Weimar or Zimbabwe? If we can't use Greek, wot abaht Latin, Hebrew, Basque?

Sackerson said...

How about "mezzanineflation"?

Anonymous said...

Brill.

Anonymous said...

Sacks: Quite brilliant. That suggestion has really floored me...

Nick Drew said...

ve-erry interesting

and we know whence a £ 100 bn contribution to this bubble will be forthcoming ! (prop G.Brown)

I am currently involved in a (consulting) project, details of which I am unable to give (natch), but from which I hope to learn a great deal that will be germane to this 'next bubble' thesis

it all rings horribly plausible. only wet blanket might what I call the 'GDP-trumps-GHG' phenomenon (see Monbiot's lament in today's Grauniad)