This book is a broad study, drawing on a wide range of published research and historical evidence, of the enormous recent stock market boom. Although it takes as its specific starting point the current situation, it places that situation in the context of stock market booms generally, and it also makes concrete suggestions regarding policy changes that should be initiated in response to this and other booms.
The need for such a book is particularly urgent today, in view of the widespread and quite fundamental disagreement about the stock market. When people disagree at such a basic level, it is usuaDy because they possess only pieces of the overall picture. Yet meaningful consensus can only be achieved by laying out all the available facts. I have therefore tried in this book to present a much broader range of information than is usually considered in writings on the market, and I have tried to synthesize this information into a detailed picture of the market today.
Why did the US. stock market reach such high levels by the turn of the millennium? What changed to cause the market to become so highly priced? What do these changes mean for the market