To a capitalist, the words “It’s different this time” are a notorious red flag.
They’re usually uttered in the midst of a speculative boom, to explain why this boom is different from the last one that went disastrously bust.
In a market driven by capitalist rules (supply & demand, creative destruction), they’re nearly always wrong.
But in a centrally-planned system, where the government picks winners and losers, where dinosaur businesses are too big to fail, where investment in capital-wasting non-economic ventures (read: “green jobs”) is actually encouraged, where labor unions are exalted and private property trod upon, where the government is expected to be the engine that drives job growth, and where John Maynard Keynes has been restored from the economic dustbin of history to be beatified, economic stagnation and high unemployment are to be expected.
Just ask any fiscal conservative.
