"I continually made the point that bubbles should be avoided, using Japan as an example of what happens in their aftermath.

Folks were often quick to respond: Yeah, but that's Japan. We do things differently here.

It's true, we do do things differently here. But what we do differently is we don't save money, as the Japanese do, and we don't run a trade surplus, as they also do. Other than that, it's pretty much the same here as it was there in the 1980s, as far as a preference for obfuscation versus transparency."

-- Bill Fleckenstein