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>If there was a bubble and it were to burst, kitchen-table investors might scarcely notice, unlike in the late 1990s. When bubbles burst the average person doe

>If there was a bubble and it were to burst, kitchen-table investors might scarcely notice, unlike in the late 1990s. When bubbles burst the average person doesn't lose because the market plunges. The average person has little money in the market. They lose because themselves, friends, family and neighbors lose their jobs.

entropea 7y ago
Wait are you saying the employee's also have risk?
scarface74 7y ago
It depends, the dot com bust didn’t have a widespread affect for most people - not even tech people who were working for profitable companies.
- entropea 7y ago
  People weren't anywhere near as dependent on technology the first time.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Just like during the dot com bust in 2000, if it happened again, it wouldn’t be the profitable companies with a solid business. It would be the unprofitable startups living off of VC funding and public companies with easy access to debt markets that would be hurt. Public companies like Uber, Tesla, and even Netflix. If those companies went belly up, it would inconvenience people but wouldn’t have far reaching affects outside of the west coast - much like what happened last time. The major profitable tech companies would keep humming along. Last time Microsoft didn’t miss a beat and Apple was still on the rise. They had their first profitable quarter in years in 2001. This time, I doubt Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, or Microsoft would hurt too much.
    - entropea 7y ago
      There are still a lot of companies relying on AWS, Azure, various CDN's that could see major financial impact from a lot of their customers going under. This has tentacles reaching everywhere, everything wasn't so reliant on each other back then.
- pessimizer 7y ago
  The dot com bust had a massive effect, and still represents the historical peak of black wealth in the US. It was mitigated for some people by an immediate bubble in housing, but that bubble only benefited people who owned houses when it started, meaning none of the people who were wiped out by dot com. Black wealth steadily decreased during the entire housing bubble. Black wealth is interesting in and of itself, but it's also interesting as an isolated population who we know had virtually no family wealth 100 years ago. If you want to know if an economy is only benefiting the already wealthy, look at black people.
  - adventured 7y ago
    > If you want to know if an economy is only benefiting the already wealthy, look at black people. Why not look at hispanic households? The vast majority of the current US hispanic population didn't exist in the US just 30-40 years ago. Their wealth started from almost nothing. Most hispanic immigration to the US has been low skill labor, from extremely poor nations. In four decades, hispanics have become the second largest demographic and have become richer than black households. From 2013 to 2016, the median hispanic household net wealth soared 45%, versus 18% for white households, and 30% for black households. As the larger demographic, I'd argue hispanic households are a better representation of if the economy is only benefiting the already wealthy. Hispanics (75% under 54 years old) are also a far younger demographic than whites (majority over 55 years old), and a moderately younger demographic than blacks. As a far younger demographic hispanics are less likely to have age-accumulated wealth. So that also gives you an excellent indicator on new wealth creation. Finally, hispanics are far less likely to have a high school level education. 36% of hispanics in the US do not, versus 17% for blacks and 8% for whites. That's another item in favor of hispanic households being a stronger indicator to watch for your premise.
    - zbyte64 7y ago
      Those are compelling reasons to take a larger look. I found charts tracking median household income by race, skip to part 3: https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/ https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/ Seems hispanic and black families are both experiencing below average gains.
- Falkon1313 7y ago
  Maybe not most people, but a little over 2.25 million jobs lost and mostly not replaced for years. It had a big effect on those millions of people. At the time of dot com boom, the Y2K rush, and the early growth and commercialization of the web, people throughout the country (not just silicon valley) were getting hired with excellent salaries. Basic HTML skills paid very well. After the bust, many of those jobs went away and people had to go back to lower-paying work or to those jobs that remained but now paid half as much. The jobs gradually returned over the decades but with more skills required and the pay only slightly and gradually moving back toward the levels it had been.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Those were artificial jobs being created by easy money and good money chasing after bad ideas. Nothing of value was lost.

entropea 7y ago

Wait are you saying the employee's also have risk?

scarface74 7y ago

It depends, the dot com bust didn’t have a widespread affect for most people - not even tech people who were working for profitable companies.

entropea 7y ago
People weren't anywhere near as dependent on technology the first time.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Just like during the dot com bust in 2000, if it happened again, it wouldn’t be the profitable companies with a solid business. It would be the unprofitable startups living off of VC funding and public companies with easy access to debt markets that would be hurt. Public companies like Uber, Tesla, and even Netflix. If those companies went belly up, it would inconvenience people but wouldn’t have far reaching affects outside of the west coast - much like what happened last time. The major profitable tech companies would keep humming along. Last time Microsoft didn’t miss a beat and Apple was still on the rise. They had their first profitable quarter in years in 2001. This time, I doubt Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, or Microsoft would hurt too much.
  - entropea 7y ago
    There are still a lot of companies relying on AWS, Azure, various CDN's that could see major financial impact from a lot of their customers going under. This has tentacles reaching everywhere, everything wasn't so reliant on each other back then.
pessimizer 7y ago
The dot com bust had a massive effect, and still represents the historical peak of black wealth in the US. It was mitigated for some people by an immediate bubble in housing, but that bubble only benefited people who owned houses when it started, meaning none of the people who were wiped out by dot com. Black wealth steadily decreased during the entire housing bubble. Black wealth is interesting in and of itself, but it's also interesting as an isolated population who we know had virtually no family wealth 100 years ago. If you want to know if an economy is only benefiting the already wealthy, look at black people.
- adventured 7y ago
  > If you want to know if an economy is only benefiting the already wealthy, look at black people. Why not look at hispanic households? The vast majority of the current US hispanic population didn't exist in the US just 30-40 years ago. Their wealth started from almost nothing. Most hispanic immigration to the US has been low skill labor, from extremely poor nations. In four decades, hispanics have become the second largest demographic and have become richer than black households. From 2013 to 2016, the median hispanic household net wealth soared 45%, versus 18% for white households, and 30% for black households. As the larger demographic, I'd argue hispanic households are a better representation of if the economy is only benefiting the already wealthy. Hispanics (75% under 54 years old) are also a far younger demographic than whites (majority over 55 years old), and a moderately younger demographic than blacks. As a far younger demographic hispanics are less likely to have age-accumulated wealth. So that also gives you an excellent indicator on new wealth creation. Finally, hispanics are far less likely to have a high school level education. 36% of hispanics in the US do not, versus 17% for blacks and 8% for whites. That's another item in favor of hispanic households being a stronger indicator to watch for your premise.
  - zbyte64 7y ago
    Those are compelling reasons to take a larger look. I found charts tracking median household income by race, skip to part 3: https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/ https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/ Seems hispanic and black families are both experiencing below average gains.
Falkon1313 7y ago
Maybe not most people, but a little over 2.25 million jobs lost and mostly not replaced for years. It had a big effect on those millions of people. At the time of dot com boom, the Y2K rush, and the early growth and commercialization of the web, people throughout the country (not just silicon valley) were getting hired with excellent salaries. Basic HTML skills paid very well. After the bust, many of those jobs went away and people had to go back to lower-paying work or to those jobs that remained but now paid half as much. The jobs gradually returned over the decades but with more skills required and the pay only slightly and gradually moving back toward the levels it had been.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Those were artificial jobs being created by easy money and good money chasing after bad ideas. Nothing of value was lost.