It never escapes, it just runs around the field for a while. During the dot com bubble a very large number of retail investors (and hedge/mutual funds) were ra

It never escapes, it just runs around the field for a while. During the dot com bubble a very large number of retail investors (and hedge/mutual funds) were racking up huge gains during the run up due to margin leverage and got wiped out on the way down. During the housing bubble lots of people had 2nd and 3rd mortgages and sucked all of the equity out (or worse, kept trading up to more expensive properties to the point where they had no equity when the market crashed) of their homes and were underwater to the point where it made sense for them to walk away from the property and hurt their credit scores for a period of time. So while they may not lose absolutely everything, they'll likely lose all of their gains and much of what they started with when the music stops.