One would not have thought it

possible for the internet bubble of the late

1990s, the greatest boom in the history of the world, to be replaced within five

years by a real estate bubble of even greater magnitude and worse stupidity.

Under more normal circumstances, one would not have thought that the same

mistake could happen twice in the lifetimes of the people involved…

The most straightforward explanation begins with the view that all of these

bubbles are not truly separate, but instead represent different facets of a

single Great Boom of unprecedented size and duration. As with the earlier

bubbles of the modern age, the Great Boom has been based on a similar story of

globalization, told and retold in different ways

– and so we have seen a rotating series of local booms and bubbles as investors

price a globally unified world through the prism of different markets.

Nevertheless, this Great Boom is also very different from all previous bubbles.

This time around, globalization either will succeed and humanity will achieve a

degree of freedom and prosperity that can scarcely be imagined, or

globalization will fail and capitalism or even humanity itself may come to an

end. The real alternative to good globalization is world war. And because of

the nature of today

‘s technology, such a war would be apocalyptic in the twenty-first century. Because there is not much time left, the Great Boom, taken as a whole, either is

not a bubble at all, or it is the final and greatest bubble in history.