RE: long-wave troughShorten the wavelength. Create a crest.
The head of alqaeda, a trained economist, was no doubt aware of these long waves of Kondratieff, Schumpeter and the others.
Did he knowingly strike at that trough to "blow out the bottom"?
Those waves track what happens and happened in history. AFTER THE FACT.
Now that there is greater awareness of these waves and their cause(s) i.e. revolutionary innovations, as steam: (now tech and global network) why can't the wave pattern be dictated by conscious collective actions of the financial community to break the pattern.
Create a different pattern that is contrary to the negative trading activity which is purposely aimed at driving markets down.
Positive focus by individuals everywhere with purpose.
To strengthen and promote and refine the global network in order to head off worst case scenarios.
Instead of following it down. With awareness drive it up.
JMO. The last mile makes the globe and the network within a mile of everywhere.
What's that worth?
Only musing.
https://www.canoe.ca/TorontoMoney/ts.ts-04-22-0060.html
Dim, dark crystal ball
Gold expert predicts wholesale financial disaster
By Linda Leatherdale, Money Editor
Warning: Today's column is not for the faint-of-heart. Yesterday, as I was sifting through the less-than-exciting financial news of Easter Monday, I came across the latest copy of the Long Wave Analyst.
For those not familiar, this newsletter is authored by West Coast investment adviser Ian Gordon, a gold buff who's a believer in the Kondratrieff Cycle -- a unique economic barometer that tracks historic events, and which, he claims, can predict the future.
Well, run for cover, if Gordon's latest predictions come true.
In this particular issue, Gordon is warning a Depression is just around the corner.
He begins by comparing today's volatile stocks markets to the worst bear market in the history of capitalism, which hit with the Great Crash of 1929 and the bleeding continuing until 1932.
"We've entered a bear market so big, we haven't had anything like it since the 1700s, and that was a 64-year corrective process," his newsletter warns, quoting analysts Robert Prechter and Adam Levy in Bloomberg News on Dec. 24, Gordon warns if stocks repeat the 1929-1932 bear market, the Dow Jones industrial average could fall to as low as 500 points. Ouch!
So, let's take a closer look: As of yesterday, the Dow sat in the 8,328 range -- down from its life-time high of 11,752 in January, 2000, but still nowhere close to a low of 500.
On Bay Street, the TSX hovered in the 6,570 range on Easter Monday. That's down from its high of 11,400 in September, 2000.
The Nasdaq, which gained 4.9% last week, is still in the doldrums. It was in the 1,419 range yesterday -- which is off by 72% since its record high of 5,132 on March 10, 2000.
Remember the hype of Y2K and all the big spending on technology so computers didn't fail at the strike of midnight on Jan. 1, 2000? Well, the computers didn't fail, but the hi-tech bubble burst, and the rest is history.
Gordon also predicts a real estate crash for our hot housing markets. "Heavily mortgaged homes and apartments industrial complexes, shopping centres and office towers are likely to experience signficiant losses in value as they did in the last Depression," the Long Wave Analyst writes.
He goes on: There will be massive unemployment, similar to the last Depression when more than 25% of the American workforce was without work.
Gordon also predicts bank failures and a run on deposits. Professional sports teams will fail financially. Government debt will skyrocket while services, like garbage collection, fire and police services, are scaled back. Some states and provinces will talk of separation, and trade wars will break out.
Gordon even talks about the failure of paper money, the collapse of our monetary system, and deflation. Yikes.
But, in all of this, he predicts one thing will shine on -- gold. "This collapse causes a panic to own gold."
Yesterday, an ounce of gold fetched $333.10 US, up $6.10. In Canadian dollars that's $485 an ounce, but that's still a long way off its high of $800 back in the 1980s.
Now a reality check from Bay Street.
Experts agree these are troubled times, with the fall-out from 9-11, war with Iraq, failed airlines, weakening global economies, and now the SARS scare.
Even yesterday, another indicator evoked fears of a failing U.S. economy, with the conference board index of leading economic indicators falling 0.2% last month.
Still, the sky's not falling, says Fred Ketchen, director of equity trading at ScotiaMcLeod, who points to stocks being very resilient throughout all of this. "There will always be doomsayers predicting the worst," says Ketchen, who adds where there's pessimism, there are always opportunities. One of them is in Kuwait, where the stock exchange closed yesterday at 3,267.80, for a gain of 892 points or 37.6% so far this year.