Feeling bullish these days? Beware the bezzle

News Snapshot:

Open this photo in gallery: Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at the opening bell on Nov. 13.ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images Investors who aren’t quite sure what to make of this year’s dazzling run-up in stock prices might want to take a break from counting their gains and start estimating the bezzle. That is the playful term that the great Canadian-American economist John Kenneth Galbraith used to describe the amount of illusory wealth in an economy. He derived the word from embezzlement because the bezzle often arises from deliberate fraud. During the time between when an...