Why you can't make money even if you know a crash is coming.

A convention of lists is that they tend to end on odd numbers, and this one won't try to be different. But it's probably worth mentioning one more consequence of what is now showing itself to be a worldwide credit bubble: When it bursts, the panic that replaces it as every bit as powerful as the buildup and in the end might turn out to be more extreme. The logic of the bubble gets replaced by an even faster movement pulling us in the opposite direction: the logic of the run on the bank as investors around the world try to get to safety before everyone else. The bubble economy has finally woken up with a major hangover, gone to look in the mirror, and is now seeing there, unshaved and blurry-eyed, its evil twin.

*Correction (June 15, 2009): An earlier version of this story said that Taleb earned $1 billion in the 1987 crash. In fact, according to Taleb's account, in the Wall Street Journal and other publications, Taleb earned $35 to $40 million.