Well, I'm back

[David Horn]

(01-15-2018, 01:12 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(01-14-2018, 02:55 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-14-2018, 07:15 AM)Mikebert Wrote: 100 years ago we did not have an overvalued market. Last month, S&P500 valuation reached 1929 levels.  The capitalist crisis appeared around 2006, a century after its first appearance in 1907. So if we get a crash which causes the economy to crater, they will be political demand for a 4T fix. Unlike in 1919, there still is a dominant generation in power, and so it is possible that this period can still map into a 4T.  If not then it will end up as a second 2T.

I got here too, but not with your degree of analytical discipline.  Mine was all gut, I'm afraid.  I couldn't find a path that lead to a true resolution of conflicting views that were not fully in contrast or readily resolvable without a confluence of luck and timing.  It still seems less than certain that a 4T resolution can be obtained, though DJT made it a lot more likely.  If, as a nation, we were just floating along and playing to our two bases, there was little to trigger a clash that could lead anywhere.  Now, there is, but is it properly focused and is it enough?

I'm still surprised by how little economics seems to play.  The righteous anger is still reserved for the cultural issues, that can't be resolved through politics, and won't be resolved until the true believers pass from the scene.  A 2T-like period might be all we can expect, though the underlying economic issues scream 4T at the top of their lungs.  I suspect this won't get resolved while I'm still around.

Were economic issues screaming in the years leading up to 2008? Social issues were, remember how (opposition to) gay marriage was supposedly key to the Republican victory in 2004?  Was the 2008 campaign about the economy, like 1992 was?  I seem to recall the big issues were the Iraq war and health care. I don't believe economic inequality even moved into public consciousness until the Occupy movement in 2011. Contrast this with the muckrakers who had raised consciousness of the plight of the underclass by 1906, and certainly by the time of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1911 (and yet would be 20+ years before anyone took effective action).

I suggest that this cycles version of How the Other Half Lives (1890) is Nicked and Dimed (2000) and the Triangle (1911) equivalent in Katrina (2005).  Donald Trumps anti-immigrant actions are the equivalent of anti-immigrant actions taken over 1921-24. So plot out the equivalent years:

1890  2000 (book pointing out the reality of life for the working poor)
1911  2005 (symbol of callous elite indifference to immigrants/people of color)
1919  2017 (peak in radicalization by S-C-model)
1922  2018 (anti-immigration actions)
1929  2020?
1933  2022?

regress them and extrapolate to 1929 gives the next point. We DO have a very overvalued stock market.  If it goes into bear mode it will fall a great deal.  A 15000+ drop in the market may be big enough to trigger another financial crisis, in which case it can fall to may the 6000's, which could be enough to trigger liquidationist investments by private capital outfits, and we could see some unsually high unemployment rates maybe even 15% or 20%.

I agree with most of this, though 2018 anti immigrant actions are really still anti immigrant talk.  That's part of the problem, I think.  the ever-present media of all types tends to play on actions before they occur they play them off after they do.  Omnipresent instantaneous feedback is a new phenomenon we're not fully able to understand to say nothing of control. 

I fully agree that a stock market crash will trigger something massive, but I'm not sure what.  What you posit is the rational response, but we seem to be post-rational, at least for now.  Whatever happens, it won't be good, though it might be weird.