From William Strauss and Neil Howell’s insightful and provocative book: The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny:
“To linearists, the future can often be reduced to a straight-line extrapolation of the recent past. Because they don’t see any bends or reversals in what has already happened, they can’t see any in what will happen.”
Linearism, sadly, is a condition that tends to afflict the inexperienced and the amnesiac investor alike. For the latter it’s typically less about amnesia and more about the belief that — despite their past experience(s) — market bends and reversals can be circumvented by massive government intervention.
In either event, history strongly suggests that it can be a most painful malady for the afflicted investor to endure…