Yesterday, the front page of the New York Times brought joyous news: "Even Pessimists Feel Optimistic About the American Economy." Indeed, some of our most prominent economic pundits are telling us that everything is different now. BEWARE.

"Indeed," the NYT says, "a number of forecasters are now predicting that the [economic] expansion, which began in 2009 and has remained subpar ever since, might prove to be far more durable than the typical five-to-six-year growth cycle, in part because of the absence of the traditional boom, then bust pattern." The traditional boom-and-bust pattern is gone?? Does this mean...

"The four most dangerous words in investing may be 'This time, it’s different,'” James Surowiecki wrote in The New Yorker last month. "But this time it is different."

Everything is different now! The positive case for the stock market "now seems to hinge on the new paradigm thinking" that the future will not resemble the past, says the WSJ. It's a new paradigm! Even with less money from the Fed, stocks are likely to rise, according to Bloomberg.

The pessimists are positive!

This time is different!

It's a new paradigm!

The stock market is on a permanent upwards trajectory!

You do not have to know anything at all about economics to know that this is when everything gets dangerous. Up! Up! And awayyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

"[Our] aim is to clear the air that somehow the United States is different," wrote the economists who wrote the book This Time Is Different, in a paper last fall. "The latest US financial crisis, yet again, proved it is not."

[Photo: AP]