Article: You can't compare houses with tulips.

It is often said that financial markets are driven by fear and greed. The problem with such statements is that they are ahistorical. They take no account of the fundamentally different contexts in which financial markets can operate.

The discussion of bubbles, examined by Daniel Ben-Ami in this week's cover story (see page 22), provides a prime example of such ahistorical thinking. Bubbles are too often discussed in relation to raw human emotion rather than a critical examination of contemporary economics.

In substance, the discussion of bubbles has moved on little since Charles Mackay, a 19th century Scottish journalist and songwriter, wrote ...

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