The 2008 housing bubble and crash altered the trajectory of my dad's life completely. He went from having a thriving roofing business that had lasted since the 60's to having to make sure he eeked every single possible job out of the summer that he could until ten years later when his dementia set in and he couldn't work anymore (except for DoorDash, with my mom), because many people's spending power was permanently lowered and still hasn't recovered. This meant having to take less pay for jobs in some cases.

Other than its effects on my family, all I remember is doubling my retirement contributions, because stock prices were so low I was getting shares for a bargain. I've always lived frugally, so crashes don't hit me as hard as they hit a lot of people.

When things crashed in 2020, I invested heavily in oil stock, having learned that the airline industry suffers tremendously in an economic crash, and with the airline industry being the biggest consumer of fuel, oil stocks can be bought dirt cheap. (I got most of my shares at 90% down from their all time highs in March and April 2020)I sat on those shares for two years and they made me enough money I was able to pay off my student loans and put a sizable down payment on a condo. It wasn't fuck you money, but it was life changing.

I'm glad dad lived long enough to see what I was able to make of myself. He was proud and happy he was able to contribute to the life I've built.

UK, 2008ish was a pain in the ass for me. Just entering the workforce, got my first job at mcdonalds. Got in just before it all went to shit. Seriously psychologically abusive time. Managers treated you like shit and you had to lick their arses because they could fire you for anything and there were thousands of people lining up for your job. I became a shift manager and I had ex-lawyers and fully trained vets cleaning out the grease traps.

Was fucked.

In 1997 everyone knew we were in a bubble. Alan Greenspan the Fed Chair publicly called it “Irrational Exuberance. ” If you got out of the market then you missed a market doubling and left significant upside on the table. It was insanity and everyone new it, much like today. There was a trend of people quitting their jibs to become full time day traders. Its easy to make money in an up market.

In the dot com collapse the effects were mostly felt in the tech sector. While the stock market slumped there was not a wave of banks failing. There were a lot of layoffs in the tech sector and IT jobs were hard to come by.

The housing bubble got me because we bought a cheap house, got divorced and then I couldn't afford to buy a new house. Now I live in an apartment with quadruple the rent of my old mortgage.

MBAs being loud and annoying, everyone frantically trying to cram PRODUCT X everywhere, last second attempts at random legislation that really didn't do anything then it all went to shit

Congrats on playing the market well!

You know how Gen Z is seen as pushing back a lot more at work and not going above like millennials? Millennials went through the Great Recession and saw the job market go from great to horrible.