Why do I have dot-com collapse deja-vu all over again? It's not just the sales collapse, it's the inventory stupid

Here's a snippit from an article from 2001 on Cisco:

On Tuesday, the network-equipment giant provided the grisly details behind its astonishing $2.25 billion inventory write-off in the third quarter, essentially admitting that it too was caught up in the Internet hype that, at its peak, gave the company the highest market capitalization in Wall Street history.

To keep up with the frenetic pace of network-equipment orders during the Internet's heyday in the mid- and late-1990s, Cisco placed big orders for communications chips, optical lasers and subassembly boards from its suppliers.

But the wicked combination of the dot-com implosion and the deteriorating economic conditions in the United States and abroad finally caught up with the world's largest data networking equipment maker, causing sales to decline at an astonishing rate and leaving Cisco with billions of dollars in equipment and materials that it couldn't sell and likely won't be able to sell in the next 12 months.

And now here's a current article from the Southeast US on the imploding housing bubble:

For two years it was a feeding frenzy. What began as a pragmatic investment alternative to a shaky stock market after Sept. 11, 2001, suddenly prompted thousands of regular people to jump into real estate.

Huge subdivisions went up atop properties investors had bought, then sold, at jaw-dropping profits - 30 percent, 50 percent, 60 percent over the purchase price.

Long stretches of roads were lined with strip malls, shopping centers, pharmacies and restaurants. Hundreds of condos were stacked along the Caloosahatchee River.

Developers and builders couldn't work fast enough. Waterfront lots became scarce. Property values and taxes shot through the roof. Impact fees were assessed as officials attempted to make growth pay for growth. Nonresidents were required to pay a bed tax. Dozens of new schools had to be built, and fast. Traffic began to snarl.

In Fort Myers, the raging real estate market came to a screeching halt late last year.

"The brakes went on 'boom!' it stopped," said local builder Bart DeRosso. "It's definitely, definitely dried up."

"If you want to know where the market's going, you look at inventory," said Denny Grimes, a Realtor in Fort Myers. "We don't have a demand problem, we have a supply problem. We had a market binge and now we're going to suffer a little bit."