ABSTRACT
The bulk of this book has described the ways in which asset price bubbles and financial laws interact to exacerbate bubbles and destabilize financial laws. Historically, the consequences of destabilized financial laws have been severe. Chapter 2 detailed how the history of bubbles has been marred by epidemics of financial fraud and law-breaking. During bubbles, the legitimacy of law erodes when the regulation of financial markets devolves into crony capitalism and individuals in both marketplace and government join in a Saturnalia of law-breaking. In the worst of cases, the collapse of bubbles and the failure of financial laws resulted in the widespread economic devastation and social dislocation of depressions, both Great and forgotten. The collapse of the worst bubbles lays waste to institutions both private and public.
