Economic bubbles thrive on collective infatuations of a different kind: 'all boom-bust processes contain an element of misunderstanding or misconception', whether it is the 'infatuation with...becoming the latest dot.com billionaire', or the one that followed with subprime mortgages, once 'Greenspan had replaced the tech bubble with a housing bubble'. As markets 'swung virtually overnight from euphoria to fear' in the credit crunch, even the most hardened market fundamentalist had to concede that such 'periodic surges of euphoria and fear are manifestations of deep-seated aspects of human nature'—whether these are enacted in home-room infatuations or upon the global stage.