There’s no denying anymore that the financial markets are in the midst of the long anticipated correction. The smart money around Wall Street has shifted from debating the possibility of an economic downturn to the question of its duration, and depth, and the possibility of timing the bounce and maybe figuring out a way to make money from it. It stinks, I know. Many novice investors who piled into the high-growth stocks in 2020 have no historical memory of a bear market, let alone a period of high inflation. But the past is never dead, as Faulkner said. It’s not even past. 

Indeed, the D.N.A. of the current market meltdown can be traced back to the 2008 financial crisis. That mess, which wiped both Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers from the Wall Street map—and probably would have cratered others had the federal government not intervened with a massive bailout—saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average peak at around 14,000 before falling to around 6,500, in March 2009. It was a nosedive of 54 percent.