Bubble: Seeking A Useless Word’s Ban
John Tamny for Forbes The dictionary definition of the word “bubble” is “a nearly spherical body of gas contained in a liquid.” But economists, market commentators and politicians have hijacked the word, using it now to describe any market rising…
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John Tamny for Forbes
The dictionary definition of the word “bubble” is “a nearly spherical body of gas contained in a liquid.” But economists, market commentators and politicians have hijacked the word, using it now to describe any market rising higher than what self-presumed experts deem a correct level.
Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi’s infamous rant against Goldman Sachs used the word “bubble” 29 times to illustrate Taibbi’s theory that the bank was a “bubble machine.” Recently in The Wall Street Journal, reporter Jon Hilsenrath inserted “bubble” no less than 28 times in an article titled “Fed Debates New Role: Bubble Fighter.”
So overused is the word that its greatest adherents have devalued it altogether. No longer a descriptive noun, “bubble” has become the default term for lazy writers seeking to explain what they cannot.
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Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.
