If you’re not familiar with the phrase “this time it’s different”, …

The thing worth noting is that everyone who might say “this time it’s different” in bullish times is lambasted. But in bearish times, everyone is basically saying this… to pick on one person, John Mauldin recently wrote “We are in an economic period unlike any other we have faced.” I don’t want to make light of the difficulties we face in the economy right now, but isn’t this a couched way of saying this time it’s different?

It reminds me of an old saying in sociology/psychology… Functional families are all the same, but dysfunctional families are all messed up in their own unique ways.

Can we say the same for the markets? Bull markets are all the same, but bear markets are all messed up in their own unique ways?