Underlying the asset bubble, the housing bubble, the commodities bubble, is the Lie bubble, or the dishonesty bubble, the Big Disconnect, call it what you will.
I think the sad truth about human nature is that people lull each other into a culture of mutually accepted lying: it becomes so familiar that we barely notice. Young adolescents often notice it, but then as they grow up they learn to live with the lies. "Lies" not necessarily in the sense of deliberately told untruths, but the unspoken acknowledgement that society somehow operates better if we all agree to ignore certain profound contradictions.