This week J. Puplava begins his series on
The Next Depression,a probability for which he assigns 90%, assuming the nation remains onits current course. Recommends Murray Rothbard's "America's GreatDepression" as excellent background reading. This book is free,courtesy of Mises, and can be accessed
here.Another author recommended by Puplava is Harry Dent, whose excerptsfrom his January Newsletter, "Guide To The next Great Depression", isavailable
here.
Highlights follow.
12 Steps to the Next Great Depression
InNovember we released a short video to subscribers outlining how weexpect this bubble boom to continue to play out and finally come to anend between late 2009 and late 2010. In fact, our next book in mid 2009is likely to be called The Great Crash of 2010.
The keymessage we have today is that this bubble boom has and will continue tounravel in a complex manner—in a number of steps and a series ofbubbles that burst. Our strategy will not be as simple as getting outof most stocks in late 2009 and moving into high quality bonds. Strongbuying opportunities will occur in different stock and real estatesectors throughout the extended downturn from 2010 to 2021 through2023.
Here, we will look at 12 steps on the way to the nextgreat depression—it was 10 in the video—we've already added a couplemore.
- We have three major bubbles bursting in similar timeframes: a stock bubble (now concentrated more in emerging markets), areal estate bubble, and a commodity bubble.
The theme of thisdecade is that we see one bubble burst while the next rises until thewhole bubble boom ends. The first bubble to peak long term was the techbubble in early 2000; the last will be the commodity bubble around late2009, with others peaking in between.
"As these threebubbles burst—stocks, real estate and commodities—the banking systemwill have to write off major loans, which will contract the moneysupply exponentially and cause the both deflation and the next greatdepression. The worst of it is likely to come in the first few yearsand during the ebb of the Decennial Cycle between 2010 and early2015—especially for stocks between late 2009 and late 2010.
The key thing to understand is that during a period like this, all assets deflate except high quality bonds and cash."