Recession time bomb ticking faster, louder
Americans are unprepared for the trillions they will lose again
America is its own enemy, trapped in new irrational exuberance
What’s even more disturbing than the near certainty of Grantham, Cook and the Economist in the dark predictions is what’s driving them, America’s self-delusional narcissism, overoptimism and irrational exuberance from the happy-talking bulls, which sets us up for huge losses, as in the recessions of 2000-2003 and 2007-2009, with trillions in lost market cap.
Individually and collectively, whether Washington, Corporate America, Silicon Valley or Main Street, most Americans, secretly believe in the American Dream, at least for themselves, perpetual opportunity, perpetual growth, perpetual prosperity. When we surveyed Wall Street years ago we found a 93% bias toward positive thinking, and a tendency to ignore or substantially discount bearish signals, to “accentuate the positive, minimize the negative.”
This behavioral tendency puts individual investors, stock markets, even nations at great risk. Harvard financial historian Niall Ferguson, author of “Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire,” asked rhetorically in a Los Angeles Times column:
“America, a Fragile Empire: Here today, gone tomorrow … could the United States fall that fast?” Yes. America could fall very, very fast, triggering an economic collapse with losses in trillions, the historic game-changer demanding a political course correction, like the 1908 antitrust laws, the 1932 banking and securities laws … or today’s massive takeover of American government by an anarchistic oligarchy of superrich billionaires.
Next crash, an ‘accelerating sports car … a thief in the night!’
The point, it’s sudden, fast, and you won’t see it coming. Nor will America’s leaders. Unprepared, says the Economist, unable to act in time to avoid the recession dead ahead.
Says Ferguson, “for centuries, historians, political theorists, anthropologists and the public have tended to think about the political process in seasonal, cyclical terms … we discern a rhythm to history. Great powers, like great men, are born, rise, reign and then gradually wane.”
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