Reuters
“Who will get the Dreary Recovery Going?” taunts Mort Zuckerman in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. The head of U.S. News & World Report warns America that a recession is coming: “They occur about every eight years and America is ill-prepared to weather the one on the horizon.” Ill-equipped.
Yes, the clock is ticking, every 8 years. 2000. 2008. Next 2016, even with a President Trump.
Another great newsman, Bill O’Neill, publisher of Investors Business Daily, author of perennial best-seller “How To Make Money in Stocks,” agrees: Markets have peaked and crashed roughly every four years for the last century, with bigger crashes, long recessions, every eight years. And still most investors will be ill-prepared.
Sounds like a double-teamed confirmation of Jeremy Grantham’s famous BusinessInsider prediction for 2016: “Around the presidential election or soon after, the market bubble will burst, as bubbles always do, and will revert to its trend value, around half of its peak or worse.”
Get it? A mega crash is coming, dropping half off its peak, down below Dow 5,000. Not just another 1,000-point correction like last month. But a heart-stopping collapse coinciding with the 2016 elections ... then a long systemic recession ... probably lasting till the 2020 presidential election, maybe longer ... no matter who’s in the White House, Doanld Trump, Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton.
Yes, recessions hit every eight years. The last was just about 8 years ago, warned Zuckerman with these facts: “The period since the Great Recession ended in 2009 has seen the weakest U.S. recovery since World War II,” Our aging bull is actually warning us ... recession dead ahead.
Why no “urgency from the White House,” no push to strengthen the U.S economy, avoid the coming recession? asks Zuckerman. Why? GOP candidates are worse, immature teenagers offering a “handful of Band-Aids.” Any leaders? Trump the egomaniac? God help us.
Next another disturbing Journal op-ed gets tossed into the mix: Dick Cheney is on the attack, sounding like fellow Republican Trump’s motto, “Make America Great Again.” Build a bigger Pentagon war machine, says the architect of the $5 trillion Iraq War fiasco. His latest rally cry: “Restoring American Exceptionalism.” Sorry folks, but the GOP’s relentless efforts to sabotage the White House the last six years (like 50 repetitive and futile House votes to repeal Obamacare) was the exact opposite, an “exceptional” failure of leadership.
The former vice president also quoted conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer: We’re at a “hinge point in history.” And former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges one-upped Cheney in Salon.com: The “world is at a crisis point the likes of which we’ve never really seen.” Like the 1848 European revolutions. Hedges even warns liberals, “climate change is the least” of the world’s problems, don’t even think that “voting for Hillary will make any difference.”
Tell Trump the ISIS War will increase taxes, add trillions of new debt
Yes, folks, the GOP neo-con hawks are back at it again, want new wars ... liken Obama to Hitler ... fueling Cheney’s latest bout of extreme hubris ... arming another Bush effort to take over America a third time ... Cheney claims America is weaker today than at the start of his costly ill-fated Iraq War. He should endorse Trump, they both want a new superpower military ready to start new wars, fight revolutionaries, add big debt, run up casualties.
So here we go again. Be exceptional. By fighting bigger wars? Show China we’re more macho? All as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey is over in Iraq admitting this won’t be a short war, in contrast to Cheney’s claim we’d be in and out of Iraq fast after the shock-and-awe wave, even “greeted as liberators.”
Meanwhile, Dempsey admits the current ISIS war could take decades, with multiple deployments, bigger Pentagon budgets. On top of that, retired Navy Rear Admiral Len Hering warns that the risk to America’s national security is growing fast due to global climate change and rising resource conflicts, a product of the endless droughts and food shortages that intensify regional wars.
Yes, bigger wars, more costs. But unfortunately that’s “not a message the White House or Congress wants to hear,” says Foreign Policy’s Dan de Luce. Why? Politicians are lost without a moral compass, playing endless myopic political games, blind, in denial, threatening costly new wars that pile up more and more debt on top of the debt we were forced to borrow from China to finance Cheney’s Iraq War.
Perfect Storm: New president, Dow 5,000, recession, growth drops
All the recent turmoil is but a prelude to a “Perfect Storm” dead ahead: The recent 1,000 point drop ... slowing global economic growth... China’s market crash ... a Fed rate hike ... worst Dow volatility in 100 years ... the slow death of the oil era ... a long costly ISIS War ... droughts ... forest fires ... irrational climate science denialism ... and more.
And history tells us it doesn’t matter who’s elected president. Trump? Sanders? Hillary? Jeb? Doesn’t matter. Markets don’t care. Remember, McCain? Big crashes, recessions happen, about every eight years. Nobody really cares. Why? Once again we’re playing the game of musical chairs, gambling on the race for the 2016 White House.
And everyone’s playing: Everybody. We instinctively know the market’s headed for another fall. Again. Part of the game, right. In fact, knowing a big crash is coming makes the game more exciting, right! So we all just keep playing for another point, praying we can time our exit just before the coming collapse.
If 250% isn’t enough ... keep playing the game ... but play defense
Yes, the market is up over 250% since 2009. Time to get out? Yes, except the Wall Street casinos keep stirring the pot, there’s more life in this bull. So we keep playing for more gains, more thrills, in the race to the 2016 peak.
How big a crash? Twenty percent? Grantham’s 50%? Lose $8 trillion like 2000? Lose another $10 trillion like 2008? Seems nobody really cares anymore. Today’s game of musical chairs reminds us of that fabulous upbeat bank CEO in our favorite Robert Mankoff New Yorker cartoon who is sounding like Trump:
The CEO is at a podium motivating shareholders: “While the end-of-the-world scenario will be rife with unimaginable horrors, we believe that the pre-end period will be filled with unprecedented opportunities for profit.”
And that is the answer to Zuckerman’s question: “Who will get this Dreary Recovery going?” Answer: Nobody. Why? The question was rhetorical, he gave us the answer: “Recessions occur about every eight years. And America is ill-prepared to weather the one on the horizon.”
Yes, another recession is “on the horizon.” Also another $10 trillion crash. And another painful GOP loss in the 2016 elections.
