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1. Embed this notice
   Steve's Place (steter@mastodon.stevesworld.co)'s status on Wednesday, 24-Dec-2025 03:12:40 JST Steve's Place

   I know a guy who spent hours playing the stock market during the dot-com boom. He invested in every buzz word company in the news. He became a millionaire!

   On paper. In December.

   Then came the crash, and he couldn't sell. He lost everything. Wiped out.

   The IRS came calling to collect taxes on all of his dot-com wealth from the year before. Well, he said, I'm wiped out! Too bad, they said, you owe us for that year. Pay up!

   They were brutal.

   Say, kids, how many of you are invested in AI or crypto in December, 2025?

   #AI #crypto

   • Embed this notice
     Steve's Place (steter@mastodon.stevesworld.co)'s status on Wednesday, 24-Dec-2025 03:14:54 JST Steve's Place

     in reply to

     • AI6YR Ben

     @ai6yr Another disaster. The winds, they be blowin' that way again!

   • Embed this notice
     AI6YR Ben (ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org)'s status on Wednesday, 24-Dec-2025 03:14:55 JST AI6YR Ben

     in reply to

     @steter I knew some folks at a place I worked who mortgaged their homes to buy Iomega stock. Right before it crashed after a bubble. 😬

   • Embed this notice
     Steve's Place (steter@mastodon.stevesworld.co)'s status on Wednesday, 24-Dec-2025 03:27:04 JST Steve's Place

     in reply to

     • AI6YR Ben
     • wombatle wombatle

     @womble @ai6yr I missed the excitement. I recall briefly using one somewhere - probably at work. I wound up with DAT tapes, lol.

   • Embed this notice
     wombatle wombatle (womble@nullpointer.org)'s status on Wednesday, 24-Dec-2025 03:27:06 JST wombatle wombatle

     in reply to

     • AI6YR Ben

     @ai6yr @steter I still have an Iomega zip drive and a couple of boxes of zip disks!

   • Embed this notice
     Steve's Place (steter@mastodon.stevesworld.co)'s status on Wednesday, 24-Dec-2025 04:43:07 JST Steve's Place

     in reply to

     • AI6YR Ben
     • Alec Perkins

     @alec @ai6yr Some beg to differ.

     https://hcommons.social/@BRMiller/115770578873584787

   • Embed this notice
     Alec Perkins (alec@perkins.pub)'s status on Wednesday, 24-Dec-2025 04:43:08 JST Alec Perkins

     in reply to

     • AI6YR Ben

     @steter @ai6yr that is…not how taxes work.

   • Embed this notice
     Muro deGrizeco (murodegrizeco@toad.social)'s status on Wednesday, 24-Dec-2025 05:15:35 JST Muro deGrizeco

     in reply to

     @steter

     One ex-coworker mentioned some years after the 2001 #dotcom crash, that his 3 years at the startup wound up costing him $30k/year. Because he had been taxed on the nominal value of the #stock granted to him, even though the share price had collapsed before he had been able to sell.

     Could be worse. Papers said some guy killed himself around then, freaked out about his imaginary wealth magically turning to devastating debt.

     Maybe the law changed since?

     Dunno. I'm a workaday joe now.