In reflecting on why the past 15 years have been so riddled by irresponsible speculation, it is impossible to ignore the rise over that same period of widely-viewed financial programming that is equally riddled with cartoonish content that encourages short-term thinking and speculation (buy-buy-buy! sell-sell-sell! boo-yah!). When we observe a clear change in the quality of analysis on the financial news, and the departure of its more speculative elements, I suspect we'll also see greater emphasis on fundamentals and better allocation of capital, while speculation will be less effective in the face of overvaluation. During the late-1990's bubble, it struck me that the discourse on CNBC was remarkably similar to the sort of discourse that I had read from news archives preceding the 1929 crash.

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