specific investment which really underscores the zero-sum hedge fund nature of participating in financial markets. Positive returns are alpha, not beta. I think that ought to significantly reduce the appeal of leverage which could be an important factor in protecting us from general asset bubbles. Borrowing, as we currently see it, which involves shorting the future value of real goods, would hopefully be seen as the fairly odd inflation index derivative contract that it is. Keep in mind that there exists no asset that transports a fixed quantity of consumption into the future. Any contract that guarantees future consumption, necessarily requires someone else to short it. So if we don't define money relative to the value of real goods then I'm hoping that we will no longer have a significant demand for fixed future consumption (currently government bonds) which can only be met by someone else shorting future consumption (e.g. a leveraged investor borrowing to buy capital assets.) So I am hoping that by breaking the anchor of money illusion to a consumption basket, that a conservative investor would simply be content to be guaranteed a fixed portion of the value of all capital assets (i.e all future consumption assuming fixed share of taxes and wages) and that the consumption basket would disappear as a relevant reference point. As far as more specific bubbles go, I think 401k's played a major role in fueling the dot com bubble. From 1990 to 1998 the size of 401k's grew from $380bn to