“Each separate panic has had its own distinctive features, but all have resembled each other in occurring immediately after a period of apparent prosperity, the hollowness of which it has exposed. So uniform is this sequence, that whenever we find ourselves under circumstances that enable the acquisition of rapid fortunes, otherwise than by the road of plodding industry, we may almost be justified in auguring that the time for panic is at hand.”

That could have been said yesterday. In fact it was written in 1859, in a history of the commercial crisis of 1857-58. Financial shocks all feel different, but most of them are pretty much the same.