Some time ago, I read a book titled “Pop!: Why Bubbles Are Great For The Economy.” This is not a summary of that book, but I recommend it as it made for some interesting reading. Its premise was that bubbles leave in their wake some new infrastructure (telegraph lines or railroad tracks, as an example) or technology leap (as in the late 90’s ‘dot com’ boom leaving a huge amount of dark fiber and active bandwidth). Now, I put that book down wondering what the next bubble would bring, and perhaps I couldn’t see the forest through the trees. Regular readers know I’m excited about the prospects of alternative energy, specifically, solar energy. Sure enough, Harper’s recently ran an article titled “The next bubble: Priming the markets for tomorrow’s big crash.” In this article, Eric Janszen, the founder and president of iTulip, Inc. speculates that alternative energy may be the next bubble forming, and if his forecast is right, we have years ahead of us to take advantage of the opportunity this presents. This chart offers both historical numbers on Tech and Housing, as well as forecasts for the housing downturn and the Alternative energy bubble.
