Ominous words

From a NY Times article trying to explain just what the fuck it is the world's political bodies are doing in response to the financial crisis.

The world’s rich countries are now conducting a dangerous experiment. They are repeating an economic policy out of the 1930s — starting to cut spending and raise taxes before a recovery is assured — and hoping today’s situation is different enough to assure a different outcome.

Oh God. They're openly doing the thing they know is wrong and failed spectacularly in the past... but this time they're hoping that whole 1930's decade was a fluke and they'll luck out and be successful this time. Well, if there's one thing that history has taught us it is that if you repeat history exactly, especially bad things, the results will usually turn out different in the end and in no way repeat.

Here's hoping you can remember all those stories your grandparents tried to forcibly tell you about the Depression, I think they'll come in handy. You probably shouldn't have tuned them out.