In the 1980s and 1990s...

"...it became a familiar critique of government industrial strategy that the state couldn't tell who the winners were and the market didn't need to be told."

"And the policy elite all learned to mouth the words that "picking winners and losers" was a bad idea. But evidently they never believed or understood it."

"All these bailout plans seem to involve giving money to companies governments have identified as key to economic vitality on the basis that they're about to go bust."

"So politicians are cluelessly unteachable here too. And they have our wallets."