if the market crashed that low for a decade, you would see massive regime change in every democratic nation and the rich would be stripped bare
That wouldn't happen at all in fact. We've already recently seen that kind of economic pain on a protracted time frame. See: 1967 to 1982, a time in which inflation adjusted the S&P 500 lost 2/3 of its value. Stagflation, high unemployment, high inflation, economic chaos, price controls, war in vietnam, societal upheaval, smashed real estate values - that era saw it all. The rich were not stripped bare at all.
Spain just went through an extraordinarily painful depression, the likes of which the US hasn't seen in 80 years. The rich were not stripped bare, Amancio Ortega is worth $76 billion. Portugal went through something similar. Greece arguably had it even worse. The rich were not stripped bare.
Russia is a klepto-state that freely takes whatever it wants from the private economy. They just went through a severe recession that set their economic standing back ten years, the oligarchs were not stripped bare.
Japan saw net negative economic growth over 20 years, while the median standard of living in Japan dropped by more than 1/3 thanks to currency debasement and high taxes vs no growth. The rich were not stripped bare.
You'll of course notice the common theme across all these different cultures.
They have an implicit subsidy, Too Big To Fail: access to cheap credit because creditors know the nanny state will bail them out.
Why don't we call it welfare when we give money to the rich? Capitalism for the poor, socialism for the rich. We don't need market discipline, but YOU do
but yeah, I wonder why they didn't decide to save bear stearns, maybe it collapsed and that was the reason they decided to save the rest
best source about the 2008 crisis? I really like noam chomsky and michael lewis' work
we basically don't know what would happen, but it's safe to say the rich might not be assured of a safe bearish trading market in a civil society