No prob. I appreciate your reading it. I think I sound a little like that street corner nonsense from time to time.
When I said, back in September of 2006, that this thing could get as bad or worse than the GD, my emotions said, “That’s crazy talk”. But my logical mind said that I need to separate my emotions from the perspective. I did. It fell out, at a high level, exactly as I thought it would. I also think it has not come close to bottom yet.
And yes, I firmly believe this one will end VERY badly, as the last GD did. The more I watch events unfold, the more I see that happening. We are in the eye of a perfect storm, and it picked up a lot of steam since we entered the eye.
The bond market bottomed in December and the stock market bottomed in March. The Fed balance sheet peaked in April. The real economy (GDP) bottomed early in the 3rd quarter. Unemployment will take another 3-6 months to top out, but the corner is already turned, long since.
In 2 weeks we get the next installment of the Fed's Z.1 data, which will tell us what has happened to US household net worth since the March bottom. I expect to see it come in up $3-5 trillion over the end of 1st quarter level.
The government can still try to pile on giant tax increases at the worst possible time, if the Democrats want to make their political suicide total and rapid. That's about all there is left to worry about domestically. Abroad there is Iran and nobody is doing anything. In 2 years we will all wonder why everyone wasn't fgcused on that, instead of hyperventilating about yet another utterly normal economic cycle.