My mom was complaining about some pyramid scheme get friend fell for and I explained how every business is a pyramid scheme.
You work, you produce way more value than you are paid, that money goes to paying other people and growing the business to make the shareholders rich. You aren’t rewarded for your work, generally. Somehow this is normal. The only difference with a real pyramid scheme is that they generally lie about how much you could succeed.
My wife and I are both lucky and we bought our place mortgage free because we were able to save while paying off our old place.
While making the purchase we specifically talked about how if the market crashes by 50%, we’re still better off. Because most likely every home will be similarly cheaper. And our earning potential would be similar.
The difference is that it’s hard to predict what will happen in an economic contraction like that. There would be a lot of joblessness and a lot of hardship.