Article: Celebrity, Meet Reality

Economists are watching the wrong bubble for signs of an impending Big Bang. It isn't real estate that's ripe for the popping; it's the overheated market in another commodity that has become as precious as a perfect diamond the size of a hazelnut, gracing the ring finger of a perfectly manicured left hand: celebrity.

I'm talking about manufactured celebrity, as opposed to the naturally occurring kind. The whole celebrity-industrial complex looks to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

The surest danger sign has to be the unintentionally hilarious Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes "romance," which, to say the least, isn't playing quite the way their publicists wanted.

It's not just that the whole ...

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