not all bubbles burst and create wonderful new productivity. Japan, whose financial markets I covered from 1991-1994, had almost no good to show from its corrupted balance sheets, and spent 30 years recovering. In the US, lots of the construction for the mortgage-centered 2008 financial crisis was bought up by big real estate investors who didn’t have to react quickly to price pressures. This is one reason why housing prices are still out of whack, and rentals are so high. Shopping mall busts gave us…empty shopping malls. They make for great photographs, but little else. Not every bust has a productive outcome.