The Share Centre's shareradio station has an interesting series of podcasts on the History of Booms, Busts and Bubbles - click here. In this podcast, Richard Grossman gives an interview about the Israeli Bank Stock Crisis of 1983. I didn't know much about this crisis until I listened to this podcast, but is a fascintating story. The crisis was so severe that Israeli banks had to be nationalised. The really interesting thing to me was that Israeli banks (and their pension funds) were buying their own shares!
According to Robert Shiller , speaking at Davos, Bitcoin is a perfect example of a bubble - story here . Shiller sees Bitcoin as a backwards step in the evolution of money. George Selgin , a free banker, takes an opposing view - click here . Although he doesn't believe that Bitcoin is money, he sees its development as a fascinating turn in the evolution of money. In particular, he lauds the fact that Bitcoin production is constrained and cannot be infinite. There is a short video below where Bitcoin explain how it works.