However I agree that doom and gloom isn't necessarily bad. And I would also say that short sellers perform one of the most vital functions in finance. (And that's why we should encourage their activity, instead of curtailing them with ever more rules or casting them as the bad guys.)
> Not sure about Europe though. But seeing as oil prices are global, I image y'all didn't much like the early 90s either.
Depending on where you were in Europe at the time, you would have had much bigger fish to fry: the end of the Cold War and dissolution of the Communist Block. You would have to look at individual countries to judge the impact (eg just a quick look at real GDP per capita reveals vast differences between eg Germany, Poland and Russia during the 90s.
(I grew up in (East) Germany and was aware that Russia did really badly in the 1990s. So I was a bit surprised to see that Poland's GDP per capita was on an upward trajectory almost immediately. I naively assumed they also had a painfully long and protracted transition phase. But it looks like their 'shock therapy' might have worked.) See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balcerowicz_Plan
However I agree that doom and gloom isn't necessarily bad. And I would also say that short sellers perform one of the most vital functions in finance. (And that's why we should encourage their activity, instead of curtailing them with ever more rules or casting them as the bad guys.)
> Not sure about Europe though. But seeing as oil prices are global, I image y'all didn't much like the early 90s either.
Depending on where you were in Europe at the time, you would have had much bigger fish to fry: the end of the Cold War and dissolution of the Communist Block. You would have to look at individual countries to judge the impact (eg just a quick look at real GDP per capita reveals vast differences between eg Germany, Poland and Russia during the 90s.
(I grew up in (East) Germany and was aware that Russia did really badly in the 1990s. So I was a bit surprised to see that Poland's GDP per capita was on an upward trajectory almost immediately. I naively assumed they also had a painfully long and protracted transition phase. But it looks like their 'shock therapy' might have worked.) See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balcerowicz_Plan