Ponzi scheme
A bubble: A "bubble" is about re-selling. A bubble is when people buy up all of a product they can, to re-sell it all at a higher price, as many times as they can. The bubble "pops" when buyers stop buying the product, and re-sellers are stuck with product they paid too much for. (The product can be anything.) As long as buyers keep paying more, re-sellers can keep making money. Bubbles don't even need central schemers, because people can do this accidentally. (For example, land prices can "bubble" this way. Prices can increase from wanting to build close to big neighborhoods. Once there's no more new land, re-sellers are stuck with their land.) Bubbles are often said to be based on the "greater fool" theory (depending on people who are "fooled" into paying "greater" prices).  But really, according to the Austrian Business Cycle Theory, bubbles are caused by giving loans to buyers for a certain kind of transaction, and in this case would qualify as a Ponzi scheme. In this case, the loan-givers are the schemers, making money from the losing re-sellers.