Until you lose most of your money in a bubble, you don't really get bubbles - they seem like something that only happens to other dumb people, not to you. The

Until you lose most of your money in a bubble, you don't really get bubbles - they seem like something that only happens to other dumb people, not to you. The most obvious, recent, and one of the biggest being the subprime housing bubble in the US. Everyone who wasn't buying a house looked like a moron for 3 years as prices were going up >10% per year (on 33:1 leverage, if not near infinite leverage - a lot of these were no money down). The average family was making more money in appreciation on their house than working their jobs. Isaac Newton was not exactly a moron, and he lost all his money TWICE in the South Sea Bubble: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0018 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.2018.001... > This paper shows that Newton did not just taste of the Bubble's madness, but drank deeply of it. His losses, even by conservative accounting, almost surely exceeded £10 000, and plausible methods easily produce values that exceed the £20 000 figure that family lore claimed, and which is frequently cited today. By comparison with typical earnings, and making allowances for a very different society and economy, £20 000 in 1720 might be comparable to £20 million, $20 million, or euro 20 million today.9 However, before the Bubble, in the 1710s, Newton's investments appear to have been those of a careful and shrewd person, and to have been very successful. Newton died rich, with an estate valued at about £30 000, but that is primarily because he was already rich on the eve of the Bubble.