The call of crony capitalism:
Because capitalism is all about Fear and Greed … why else have an index for it. Maybe Thanatos and Eros would be better indices for “emotional” financial market drivers. Individual 1 has made the general public less enured to his lies by their constant repetition.
The problem with business cycles is that they feature crises of cynicism and expectation as much as fear and greed. Where “profit is the major engine of the market economy, but business (capital) profitability has a tendency to fall that recurrently creates crises, in which mass unemployment occurs, businesses fail, remaining capital is centralized and concentrated and profitability is recovered.”
After booking its best week since 2011, the
S&P 500 plunged 3.2% Tuesday and tumbled again Thursday before
staging a massive recovery. Stocks fell sharply on Friday after Trump officials Larry Kudlow and Peter Navarro contradicted each other on trade.
No matter the catalyst, the overarching fear is over just how long the economy has until the next recession strikes. Months? Quarters? Years?
"Markets are fully convinced we are in the last stages of an economic cycle," Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, wrote in a note to clients. "Traders are feverishly looking for the dry tinder that will turn a simple short circuit into a full-blown conflagration."
Signs of worry abound. The Fear & Greed Index, a CNN Business gauge of market sentiment, is flashing "extreme fear." Germany's stock market is flirting with a bear market. Oil prices are already there. The VIX volatility index (VIX) spiked 29% this week. And the S&P 500 is on track for its worst quarter in seven years.
"We're at a very confusing point for the economy," said Kristina Hooper, global market strategist at Invesco. "It's not as predictable as it was last year when growth seemed a lot more potent."
edition.cnn.com/...
Aug 03, 2018 · The next recession may be coming in a year or two, so this is the time to start preparing your finances accordingly. (Forbes)
(2017)
It may seem to some that we're still recovering from the Great Recession of 2008, but the reality is that we're nearing our 100th month of expansion at the end of this year.
With an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent and a bull market (at least at this writing), the late summer of 2017 looks like a Goldilocks economy: There's steady growth that's not too hot and not too cold. Inputs (e.g., employees and equipment) aren't too expensive or too cheap.
That means just one thing: a recession is coming.
Not to be a killjoy, but historically there have only been two expansions that lasted as long as this one. To match the 120-month boom in the 1990s, we'd need the economy to keep growing past January 2019, an occurrence that The Wall Street Journal deems "a very tall order."
[...]
A recession in 2019 would likely be short but one in 2021 might be a bit more brutal.
www.inc.com/...