THE TECH BOOM:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...07/ssp.00.html

HOPKINS: Now do you agree with this that the bad news is behind us? The Lucent warning yesterday was the end of the bad news, and now it's onward and upward and this new money is now in the market?

MEEHAN: Well, I'm not so sure that Lucent is going to be the absolute last, but, you know, the mania behind this drive for technology stocks is not likely to be broken in just a few days' time. And I don't think people are speculating in technology stocks because of one quarter. In many cases they're discounting earnings and profitability 10, 20 years from now.
THE HOUSING BOOM:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../18/oh.01.html

WILLIS: Let's talk about flipping here for a minute, because a lot of people out there are really interested in this. Listen up, you know the old-fashion flipping. Let's tell you about that first, that's when somebody takes a rundown house and fixes it up in three to six months, and then sells it and makes a profit.

But the new flipping is something entirely different. It's truly speculative. People only hold onto their homes for a day, a few weeks, and turn it over very quickly.

VELSHI: These are the speculators that work in any market that's hot really, and they've decided that the place that you can do this, despite all of the expenses of buying a house, and the commissions and the legal fees, it's so worth it so buy a house and turn it around. Who are these people? Are these regular folk?

WILLIS: Well, there's a lot of regular folk doing this right now. In fact, the National Association of Realtors says that some 23 percent of people out there who are home buying are speculators, really investors.

And what I was talking about earlier, the really speculative part of this and turning over houses so quickly, these are people who live in red hot markets, Miami, Vegas, you name it, Ali.

And what they're doing is they're buying these with the idea they'll turn them over so quickly, housing prices going up so far, so fast, they'll be able to make money.

Now when I was in the Miami area this winter, what I found is that people were selling rights to buy these condos on the ocean front and making a ton of money doing this. Now the problem can be, what if prices go down?

VELSHI: Right. And a lot of the speculators, a lot of these flippers are highly leveraged; they're not paying capital down, they're not putting much of a down payment down, so if prices go down, you're now left with this full debt and exposure to your property.

WILLIS: Well, a lot of people, too, never expected to hold onto these mortgages. So they're really not prepared to pay for them.

VELSHI: Speaking of mortgages, how is it different from my going to the bank to get a mortgage on the home that I live in?

WILLIS: Right. Well, a lot of people are using for these speculative mortgages as well. Interest-only mortgages, you may be familiar with those. Those are the ones where you pay interest only, not the principle. A lot of people are using them for their primary homes. They can be a little dangerous if you never pay down the principle on your mortgage, but it does allow to you stretch your dollars if you're getting into highly speculative real estate.

VELSHI: And like stock trading, there's a line here between those people who kind of do on it the side for fun. Maybe they'll get another house, fix it up, or maybe they'll sell it sooner, and people who are now putting all of their net worth really into the business of being in property, and that's just dangerous because you're not spread out enough; you're not diversified. WILLIS: Well, possibly, and also this is really the day trading of the 2005s is what's going on here. When the music stops, when the market goes down, these people could be in a lot of trouble. In the meantime, they're having a heck of a good time, and having a lot of fun and making a lot of money. But it's going to be interesting to see how long this can go on for.
AND OF COURSE, ALAN GREENSPAN:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../13/se.03.html

The past decade has been extraordinary for the American economy and monetary policy. The synergies of key technologies' markedly elevated prospective rates of return on high-tech investments led to a surge in business capital spending and significantly increased the underlying growth rate of productivity. The capitalization of those higher expected returns boosted equity prices, contributing to a substantial pickup in household spending on new homes, durable goods and other types of consumption generally, beyond even that implied by the enhanced rise in real incomes.