Real estate reality checks in China and Israel

The market bubble, perhaps the most idiotic man-made disaster except war, has been around for centuries, has wreaked havoc across continents and is surely here to stay.

Yet now, with memories of the great housing bubble that touched off the 2008 meltdown still fresh in people's minds, governments faced with bubbly markets seem to share one instinct: Do something.

Or phrased differently: Let's not be Alan Greenspan.