Ya Gotta Save It

(First published November 26, 2007)

We stand at the precipice of some very exciting times in America. Both in the political and the financial realms, unusual events appear to me about to go into very radical motion. It would behoove all of us to try to understand what, so far, has been. going on just beneath the surface. The reason I say this is because these events concern all of us- and the more popular participation we can achieve in them, the better will be America for it.

The financial press has been going overboard in its gloomy prognostications this year- especially with regard to the stock and bond markets. Just to recap: this is the fifth full year of a bull run in stocks that began after a 3-year plunge that ended in October 2002.This run has been especially resillient and has given away its hidden strength on at least two separate occasions, If you were watching closely (which wasn’t easy to be sure), stocks posted incredible run-ups twice when logic would have suggested a fall-off to have been more appropriate. The two events were Hurricane Katrina in September 2005, and the Virginia Tech shootings earlier this year in April. Check the records and see if I’m not right. When stocks’ behavior appears to be acting at variance to the backdrop of a specific negative event, the message being conveyed is that we have a bull market that simply refuses to die- or even take a break. Markets send messages far into the future that anticipate things to come. Since the first of this year, this market has also been battered by the mess in the sub-prime mortgage market. Yes, prices have declined in stages since February 27^th when sub-prime started hitting hard. The surprise is how little damage has been done.This bull remains alive. I could cite additional factors that have been cropping up recently.Over the period of the August price swoon, corporate insiders (officers, directors, board members and the like) were buying shares in any number of companies at market prices. September and October, traditionally the weakest trading months of the year,were not. Finally, a number of the big city conventional wisdom mass circulation papers have been seemingly trying, throughout this just-past month of October, to draw invidious comparisons between this bull market and the one that came apart at the seems in a fearful crash exactly 20 years ago in October 1987. Now these same geniuses are back at the same street corner, howling the same predictions of woe after the disastrous goings-on at Merrill Lynch and Citigroup where each of the CEOs lost their jobs. Don’t get me started on their warnings of impending doom because of (take your pick): higher oil prices, higher gold prices, expectations of dismal holiday retail sales etc. etc. I guess you get the idea. Somebody upstairs (probably on Wall Street) is desperately attempting to shake stock shares loose from “the weak hands”in preparation for an incredible price rise to follow. Try and guess who those weak hands represent- you got it! The little guy ie. you and me. The “smart money” will gladly take those shares off your hands should you be foolish enough to sell them (at a discount naturally). A better idea still might just be to dovetail your strategy alongside their’s.

I am beholden to an author named Harry S. Dent for the conclusions I am about to lay out. They come right out of the pages of his book; “The Next Bubble Boom”. They are only his opinion, but the conclusions are starting to make an awful lot of sense. Dent avers that big stock market events seem to occur in 80-year cycles. When you step back, and look again, this market looks very much like a close parallel to the 1920s- not the 1980s. The match is not exact, but the picture is becoming very compelling.

If you accept that Dent may be right, it is hard not to conclude that stocks, far from getting ready to drop, are positioned on a launching pad about to take off- big time. This is the first platform. Time is running out to get positioned to profit. If you miss what may be the final buying opportunity of this decade, you might just live to regret it. With the withering volume of media gloom and doom up to and including talk of upcoming recession, the reality is that a FOR SALE sign is up on Wall Street.

The second platform is political, and it will be assembled over the course of the upcoming election year. If there is a God in heaven, this process will draw unusual amounts of attention from heretofore unengaged citizens who will opt to more fully involve themselves in the caucus, primary, and (finally) the general election. The reason, quite simply, is that the fate of the nation now rests in your hands. Decisions- most especially in the fiscal and economic realm- have been put off and put off for decades and we have to get real and face them now because we are nearly out of time. Sometime (probably after the year 2010) this country will undergo a crisis moment comparable in seriousness to the Civil War or the Depression. We are not united about much of anything anymore, and we definitely ARE NOT READY. Go out to events and ask the hard questions of these candidates that have placed their names out there to contend for these offices. They might be surprised to find so much more interest than expected (a good thing) but they will be very available and learn quickly to address your concerns. Its part of the flexibility of mind they must get used to having. You have the right to straight answers. For sure, do not give your support to any person, entity, or political party that insists on treating this as “just another election”, or your questions as “hypothetical”.

As a free nation, we do not any longer have the luxury of standard, staid old “solutions” – not the kind you can fit in on a bumper sticker or in a sound bite. Its time to summon up the people of common sense- what Nixon used to call the “silent majority”- and coalesce them around a new group of Founders (no less is required) and start the idea process bubbling up from that broad expanse of wisdom that now lies fallow in our still great land. And we cannot wait for the election to conclude. Time is running out. We have to insist that this process of popular participation begin at least with the formation of the Party platforms. Who has the genius, boldness and imagination to inaugurate such a mass-participation process first (yes, the technology is available now) will be rewarded with a sizable working majority (a rarity lately) in the houses of Congress so as to undertake a reform mission that can save America. It’s a little bit of magic called WE THE PEOPLE. Its time to ASK THE AUDIENCE.

ITS YOUR FUTURE

For The Nonce——-PV