The Winter 2013 issue of Cato's Letter (a publication of the Cato Institute) carries a meditation by Charles Murray on the value, or rather on the over-valuation, of the B.A. degree in the U.S. at the present. Indeed, he calls it a "bubble." The word "bubble" is surely inexact. Bubbles in the economic sense involve commodities that are readily transferable. It is because they are transferable that they become over-valued in a very specific way. I can sell you my tulip bulb, or my dot-com company stock, or my mortgage derivatives' portfolio, simply because you are a greater fool than I am. You might buy them in the expectation that you can find someone even more foolish. Thus, we both make use of the ready transferability and the transaction is quickly concluded. This continues until the over-valued commodity is in the hands of the greatest available fool, after which point by definition it can not continue, and the bubble bursts. I can't give y...