Prices only go up

A group of young men in Manama buys and resells limited-edition trainers, and they share one firm belief: the good pairs only ever go up in value.

The belief is more than a forecast. It is part of who they are. They meet in a busy chat, swap tips, and admire whoever bought earliest and held longest. Someone who sells too soon is teased. Someone who suggests that prices might fall is treated as if he has missed the point of the whole thing.

Groups like this form around many things: a team, a style of music, an investment, a way of eating. Most of them are harmless and many are joyful. The trouble begins when staying in the group depends on agreeing with it, and agreeing starts to matter more than looking.

A few signs tend to show up together. Changing your mind is treated as weakness. Not reading anything from outside the group is spoken of as loyalty. When a fact arrives that does not fit, the reason for the belief quietly shifts, so that the belief itself never has to move. And a calm question raised in the chat turns, within minutes, into an argument.

Nobody is being stupid here. Belonging is a real need, and the group offers it generously. The cost is that every member now has a social reason to ignore the market they are trading in.

The market does not care how the chat feels. When enough new pairs arrive, or fewer people want them, prices drop whether the group agrees or not.

That is the problem with any story protected from questions. The protection only works for a while, and the people inside are always the last to be told it has ended.