When on Monday FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (hereafter referred to as SBF) took to Twitter to reassure depositors that the third-largest cryptocurrency firm’s liquidity was fine, one could be forgiven for hearing echoes of Bear and Lehman’s c-suiters talking to CNBC to reassure their respective sources of funding, their short-term lenders, that their liquidity was also fine, when in fact their own firms were in their death throes.

Now here’s the headline!

Swiss National Bank loses nearly $143 billion in first nine months

This year’s midterms came at a time when most Americans are poorer than they were two years ago, violent crime is on the rise, and exit polls seemed to unanimously point to voters prioritizing these basic facts over abortion rights and “democracy.” Everything was primed for a Republican red wave to set the table for a potential sixty-seat Senate majority in 2024.

Instead, Republicans underperformed historical midterm trends. The only “red tsunami” was in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis won with the largest margin since 1868.

To many of us, no matter how well versed in history, in political affairs, or in socioeconomic issues, the present conditions in the West, and especially in Europe, can sometimes seem like the plot of a bad movie. It is often said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme, and what we’re seeing today is a great example of that. Nevertheless, one would have expected that at least some of those in charge of the “big decisions” would have learned something from the mistakes of the past—if not the mistakes of their predecessors, at least their own.