The bubble burst. It wasn't even like the instantaneous explosion that you see in real time when you might pop a balloon with a pin.
It was the slow motion version, the version captured on a 1,000+ frames per second slo-mo rig. You could see the moment the pin broke the surface tension. You could see the entire surface recoil and explode in all its glory. And then you were left with the sheer terror, realizing that underneath it all was nothing but air.
It was brutal. It left scars that people still suffer from to this day. It was so vicious, so harsh that the toll wasn't even just financial; it even sparked the loss of human life. Nothing, absolutely nothing can capture how bad the 2008/2009 global debt crisis was. Nothing can be said except that the situation was avoidable-but there are common themes with every recent crisis. Often it's debt, greed, and the thirst for power by centralized organizations, authorities and law makers.
But as bad as the debt crisis was, from the aftermath came a surge, actually more like a tidal wave, of growth and prosperity. But the question is, "Is it real prosperity? Is it real growth? Or is it the same old thing repackaged and played again?"
We will see when we look at this in more depth. But for all the devastation of the 2008/2009 debt crisis, it certainly wasn't the first time the world had seen financial pain like this.
Just 10 years earlier the same thing happened. It was also an enormous event-albeit more specific to the technology industry. But this earlier crash in the 90s was more like "the crash we needed to have."
For all the pain it create, it was the exact kind of crash needed to filter out the rubbish. It was exactly the medicine market needed to let the strong, stable and genuinely revolutionary companies flourish - and flourish they did.
The tech-bubble, or 'dot-com' bubble, was one of the most devastating market crashes since Black Monday. And Black Monday had been the most devastating crash since Black Tuesday, 1929. And Black Tuesday had been the worst crash since...well, you get the point.
For as long as markets, central financial authorities, Wall Street elites, the global financially powerful, the 'establishment' have existed, there have been market crashes. None of it the direct result of people other than those that sit in their ivory towers and determine the way the world turns.
