I was around for all the crashes.....mid 80s being the last one that I believe the gov/fed did nothing but jawbone to help the market (I could be wrong on that---I was broke back then, making next to nothing and didn't care).

But I was in a different position for the 1990s and 2000s bubbles. Seems to me that the Dotcom crash was alleviated by GreenScam driving rates underwater....which of course led to the even worse RE crash later. I was living in ground zero for that bubble on the coast--but was a renter by choice. I also lived the Japan bubbles in both stocks and RE and thought the same would happen here, i.e. a long, dark crash. I mean the market can't be THAT controlled with our "capitalist" economy, can it?

I was wrong. And very naive.

Seems to me the Fed put epic amounts of trash on their books to support RE (more accurately, the banksters who owned and/or backstopped the MBS). Which of course re-inflated the market into the stratosphere. Which is why the young cannot afford to rent (let alone buy) a home now.

So what we have now is decades of Pavlovian conditioning that TPTB will do something, anything to prop the market. Namely, public debt and chronic, understated inflation which, IF you know maff and compounding...is pure financial torture for the vast majority of us.

We have seen markets crash anytime, anywhere. When the markets can crash is not the question.

The question is what will the response be? Let market forces work? Or (by hook or crook) ramp up the backstops (trash on books, lower rates)?

What does history say?

Since inflation overwhelmingly benefits the wealthy (they have the assets, not you).....but the masses want their little crumb that fell off the table, too......I have my own opinion on what they (specifically the Fed) will do when the time comes. And I also know who the Fed really works for.

Hint: it ain't you or me.

Nothing would make me happier than to see those greenbacks stop losing value to buy stocks, RE, food.....ANYTHING....instead of otherwise. I am not holding my breath.