There’s a quintessential list of clichés for each economic downturn. “This time, it’s different” is one of those clichés, the inference being that this will be the worst. What’s different about this economic downturn? The size of the pain (unemployment, financial loss, etc.) is different. The players are different. The politicians are different. The companies are different. The products are different. The reason they’re all different is that the time frame is different. The average peak-to-peak (for the past 100 years) before each economic downturn has averaged fifty-eight months. That means almost five years pass before each economic downturn.

What’s the same? The cause of this economic downturn is the same: The creation of artificial value through excess. The reason for the downturn is the same: To equalize the markets and marginalize the excesses.

Given these conditions, the markets should bottom out and return to normal within a reasonable period. That hypothesis presumes the politicians don’t interfere with legislation that procrastinates the elimination of excesses to another day.