Bubble trouble or bubble boom?
Apropos the preceding post, there is another way of looking at bubbles, you know. "Almost by definition, spending on housing and housing-related goods tends to stay in-country. Even better, housing-related spending spreads riches more evenly throughout the economy than, say, investment in stocks," writes Daniel Gross in "Bubble Over Troubled Waters" in Slate.
And he makes the very valid point that the jobs fueled by the housing boom in the US (and likewise in Britain, in Australia, in Ireland), "are white collar and blue collar, and they range up and down the income scale: mortgage brokers and lawyers, title insurers and deed recorders, appraisers and movers, architects and engineers, interior decorators and plumbers, hardware store managers and Home Depot clerks, manufacturers of cement and lumber. Spending on housing flows into a remarkably wide range of sectors — and the overwhelming majority of the spending is local."
So, Long Boom or Big Bubble that's going to end in Trouble?
