Many experts have warned that the global market is in the midst of a financial bubble that could lead to a crisis, but many people may not understand how such a crisis occurs. The Onion provides a step-by-step guide to how financial bubbles form, grow, and ultimately burst.
Step 1:
Investors speculate everyone has finally forgotten any lessons from last crash.
Step 2:
Couple overjoyed to learn they qualify.
Step 3:
Despite rigorous enforcement, some shady business practices actually make it past ever-vigilant eye of the SEC.
Step 4:
Buy! Buy! Buy! Don’t think, just buy!
Step 5:
Slight possibility arises that heavily invested company which has lost money eight years running may just not have good business model.
Step 6:
Arrow on chart goes from good black to bad red.
Step 7:
Instances of flustered men pulling out their empty pockets skyrockets.
Step 8:
Everyone starts claiming they all totally saw this coming.
Step 9:
Government and financial industry work to diagnose exactly what went wrong and how to fix the fundamental problems that perpetuate damaging boom-and-bust cycle, then decide not to implement any changes.
Step 10:
Crisis declared over when economy returns to being just as bad as it was before the bubble.