The bear market that started with the dot.com crash in 2000 lasted through 2002 — 3 years. If this bear market plays out the same, the light at the end of the tunnel won’t appear until mid-2025. So don’t expect any quick turnaround here. This is going to be grim. 2002 in particular was very difficult — the market went down relentlessly the entire year, month after month.
Category: Economics and trade
Afraid
You get afraid when you realize the leadership in Washington today are a bunch of dolts who make decisions based mostly on wanting to win a popularity contest rather than rational decisions based on the best possible outcome.
We are facing imminent food shortages, the erosion of our currency, an economic collapse, and horrible decisions in foreign policy that have driven our two most consistent adversaries — Russia and China — into a mutually beneficial alliance hostile toward the US.
Hard times are coming to this country…hard times, and much of it is our own doing.
US Sanctions Against Russia
They should drop the sanctions against Russia. The sanctions are going to hurt the West a lot more than they hurt Russia. Europe needs natural gas and foodstuffs from Russia. Europe needs Russia a lot more than Russia needs Europe because Russia can sell to China and India what they don’t sell to Europe. And Putin just declared that from now on, all sales in oil and natural gas will be in the ruble, not the dollar. So are we seeing the end of the petrodollar regime because of these sanctions? And I’m not even mentioning the gigantic inflationary impact that the sanctions have caused on oil and natural gas, which has a ripple effect on so many other products — so runaway inflation. And guess what, these sanctions antagonize the Russian population and so make them anti-American and even more supportive of Putin.
So, bottom line, these sanctions represent more stupid diplomacy by the US. How to shoot yourself in both feet with a single bullet — that’s US diplomacy.
Bubbles
The Federal Reserve put is well entrenched. Their mandates used to be to hold inflation in check and to promote high employment. They are still interested in promoting high employment, but they want now to CAUSE inflation, and the number one priority in the last decade and counting is to see to it that the stock market keeps going higher and never fails. They are the true custodians of the stock market. Since they have an unlimited balance sheet, they think they are in control of things. We shall see. The skeptics think instead they are just making a dangerous bubble bigger and bigger.
Distorted Reality
It shows you what a distorted reality we are all in when it is thought to be a good thing that the government is giving away “free” money to everyone.
When the sugar high wears off after this latest round of the dole, the reality of our dire economic situation, with persistent high unemployment, will sink in. That’s when the Federal Reserve-induced stock market rally begins to unwind. You won’t want to be in it when that happens. The stock market takes the escalator up but the elevator down, as the saying goes. When there are no buyers and all sellers, you won’t be able to even get into your account to make sell orders.
Bearish
I’m bearish on the economy because I think this coming Democratic administration is guided by ideology and much of what they believe undermines business development and kills off jobs, so we will get what we got from Obama — a federal government that’s neutral to hostile to business with policies that unintentionally limit or even reduce jobs growth. Exactly what a stalled economy doesn’t need. At some point, this will show up as a sharp decline in the stock market, perhaps even a prolonged recession.
It may well be a good idea to start to invest elsewhere than in the US, as the US, so deeply divided politically and so disrupted economically, may well be a country in serious long-term decline. And add to that that asset prices like the stock market and the housing sector are seriously overvalued.
Keystone
Canceling the pipeline is another jobs-killing measure by our new president. This at a time when the unemployment rate has not recovered, but may be getting worse again. Fairy tale economics from this Democrat. Raising the minimum wage another jobs-killing measure, especially in states with lower cost of living.
These Democrats are ideologues. Reality isn’t an issue for them. They do what their ideology dictates — whatever the consequences.
Biden’s Dumb Stimulus Plan
Biden’s stimulus plan that raises the minimum wage, of course, undermines jobs by making employers pay more for their least expensive employees, so naturally what these employers will do is cut some of those jobs to protect their profit margins — this is especially true in states with a lower cost of living, as in many of the states in the South. This at a time when it is crucial to stimulate job growth. What’s the word for that. “Dumb” comes to mind.
The bulk of the program is this big giveaway to state government with deplorable finances — think New York and California. In other words, it rewards bad financial behavior by state governments with the most spendthrift mindsets. Another dumb.
Finally, it gives a huge amount of money to colleges and public schools, i.e., financing an education system that is already way overdeveloped to begin with. Another dumb.
And again we have this practice of giving money to people, which is part of the program which actually does address the immediate problem, but I ask you, is it smart for the federal government to be giving money to everyone — is that a smart practice in the long run? I think not.
Put another way, is it wise for the federal government, which is already so deeply in debt, to take on such an unprecedented amount of new debt? That’s what the big giveaway comes down to — an enormous expansion of federal government debt, which is already well beyond anyone’s real understanding before this stimulus plan is even put into effect. It mortgages our children’s future and their children’s future…and their children’s future.
What would make sense here is a massive infrastructure program by the federal government. What should have been done way back in the 2008 crisis but wasn’t. Are we about to repeat history?
Money Printing
The Federal Reserve money printing is causing assets like the stock market to behave as if we were in a very healthy and even robust economy, which of course we are not. Don’t make the mistake and think that we are.
Biden
The corruption by Biden’s sons gets a pass by the liberal media — this time they ignore something that is so obviously real versus inventing something about Trump that isn’t.
Biden as president would be a big step backwards — an old-time politician with a slick smile and no leadership. Not what the country needs right now to lead it out of the economic morass created by the virus. If he gets elected, the wheels come off pretty quickly. We will see some real chaos in the street then.
Henry's Views 