Doug Noland: Old Roach Motel

My issue is not with Amazon.com, but with today's thousands of wannabes. Just raise "capital" and spend as aggressively as possible. Profitability and cash-flows are a concern for some day out in the future. What matters is a clever idea, growth, market share and dominance the quicker the better. It's a financial, market and business backdrop that has fostered an Arm's Race Mentality - online retail and services, the cloud, AI and quantum computing, blockchain, 5G, cybersecurity, Internet of Things, electric automobiles, battery technologies and alternative energy, autonomous vehicles, biotech and pharmaceuticals, automation and robotics, nanotechnology, and on and on.

It's somewhat reminiscent of 1999, but on such a grander scale that the two periods are hardly comparable. The late-twenties is more pertinent: the proliferation of exciting technologies and innovation; lavishly over-liquefied securities markets; faith in policymakers and a general disregard for risk. In 1929, there was essentially no recognition of downside risk. A long boom had convinced about everyone that financial and economic underpinnings were sound. Similar to today, little attention was paid to the soundness of the finance underpinning the boom.