Marketing

This article is illustrative of the poison that is (largely) american business. Our firms are increasingly driven by "marketing people" (caveat: I am sure that many, many marketing people are fine human beings, with whom I would enjoy having a cold beverage at some point in time -- provided they put cash on the table to pay the tab first).

The problem with that, is that marketing people do not conduct their business using real data, rigorous logic, or planning activities. They use their spuriously created numbers and schemes as if they were etched in granite, and are seldom (if ever) held accountable for the disasters they create. The now famous acronym "GIGO" (garbage in, garbage out) of early software development is representative of what marketing brings to the table (other than inflated market valuations, bonuses, and greed driven risk taking by CEOs and Corporate Boards who have very little of their own "skin in the game"). That is the precise reason for "bubbles". Once the hype is gone or unmasked, the spurious valuations collapse and the bubble pops.

Not the "engine room"

More like the "boiler room", the sweatshop type places where they stuff the pump-and-dump type of financial salesmen.