Welcome back to Dry Powder.

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In today’s column, it pains me to deliver some unfortunate news: The Big One is here. It stinks, I know. The fault, as I have been warning, lies squarely with the Federal Reserve, and the central bank’s post-‘08 easy-money morphine drip. Herewith, a concise history of Bernanke’s folly, and a look at how the smart money on Wall Street is buckling up.

Bill

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Indeed, the D.N.A. of the current market meltdown can be traced back to the 2008 financial crisis. That mess, which wiped both Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers from the Wall Street map—and probably would have cratered others had the federal government not intervened with a massive bailout—saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average peak at around 14,000 before falling to around 6,500, in March 2009. It was a nosedive of 54 percent.

By that decidedly unscientific measure, we would still have a long way to go before investors get back in the buying mood. Notwithstanding Warren Buffett’s first quarter purchases—loading up the truck on the stocks of Apple, Chevron and Occidental Petroleum, among others—it still feels a bit soon to believe the blood has been fully let...