The Oh, Hello and welcome to Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood. Just one

guest today a familiar one. The Economist and former Greek Finance Minister

Janus Verifocchis will tie up a few loose ends from our interview in October about his books

adults in the room, and then we'll address the lack of thinking around a progressive

internationalism. But before that I'm going to indulge in a rare bit of holding forth on my own on the topic of Bitcoin.

I thought of having a guest do that, but since I wrote a piece in the topic for the nation back in 2014,

and I've been keeping up with it ever since, I thought that I was as qualified as anyone to do the work.

Some of what I'm about to say is drawn from that article, but it's updated with material from the shimmering present.

Bitcoin, once a fairly arcane topic, is now everywhere.

The market pundit Robert Practor, who is a great psychologist of financial markets, despite

being a devoted follower of I and Rand and believing in a piece of superstition called the

Elliot Wave theory, once argued that in the course of a major bull market there's

something called a point of recognition when the general public hops on board.

When that happens it means it's getting late in

the run and it's time for pros to think about getting out. Though a serious

mania can go on well after John and Jane Q get involved. It sure seems like we're

at or even beyond that point with Bitcoin, whose price trajectory over the last few years

resembles some of history's great manias like the Dutch tulip bulb frenzy of the 1630s,

the South Sea bubble of the 1710s in the US stock market orgies of the 1920s and 1990s.

What's going on?

Before getting into the details, I should say that money in general is not a simple topic. Most people have a good

understanding of how gold, which is something of a primal money, is mined, refined, and shaped

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