Let Everyone Move Money Into No-Good Shit*.

“ ... It was hard to see how that value made sense.” 

(Said Dr Michelle Deaker who, if anyone might see sense she might, being founder of one of Australia’s leading venture capital firms, OneVentures, as reported in today’s Business Australian “Start-up layoffs just the beginning for sector”.)

Dr Deaker was referring to the buy-now pay-later sector comprised of start-ups with names that sound like 1960s family board games: Sezzle, SplitIt, Humm and Zip being the four mentioned in the story. The story quotes Zip as having lost an astounding 94% of its market ‘value’ in twelve months. 

Of course those exact words were uttered in a past downturn: no, not the Great Depression, the 1970s recession or even the '87 stock market crash. It was the dot.com crash of a mere two decades ago. We could say people have short memories but mass hysteria has always trumped common sense.

*Acronym time!