I've always wondered if one of the reasons the German (and other European) economy(ies) fared poorly after 2000 is that a lot of individual investors from Europe joined the dotcom fun pretty late in the game, and they were the ones that were left holding the bag. American investors, except for the few most extreme cases, if they invested earlier in the 90S would stille come out in positive territory. Europeans (starting with the Deutsche Telekoms, Alcatels and the like) that bought assets at inflated prices in 1999-2000 had to support real losses. I remember seeing that German foreign investments reached records in these years (to the tune of 150 billion euros, I think), and a good chunk of it was probably lost altogether. Quite a nasty shock for the economy.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes