They are telling us the economy is getting better and is already in recovery. It's like some cheerful pal is visiting a friend in the hospital. The poor guy's lying there deep in a coma, totally paralyzed, unconscious, every bone broken, and a well wisher walks in and shouts in the ear of the patient, "You look fabulous. Your toenails are still growing. That means you're on your way!"
But who are the people who are telling us we're in recovery? Who are they? The news anchors? The political pundits? Economists? Manufacturers jacked up on caffeine and already a nervous wreck about Christmas sales? The reptoid aliens lulling us all into a dizzy sense of false hope? Somebody must behind this blissful point of view.
And if you don't see it, if for some reason you don't share this spoonful of Mary Poppins sugar, then what's wrong with you? Should you take an anti-depressant so you can get with it? Maybe you need Ambien to keep you asleep through what is proving to be the most profound transformation in American economic history any of us have ever seen.
I don't want to sleep through it.
I don't want to go broke either.
As far as I can see, the economy has not bottomed out at all. Pluto is going direct at zero degrees Capricorn the second week of September, and that is very likely to be a rude awakening for everybody who believed the old days were coming back and fell for the notion that we've seen the last of tough times. We are not, however, all on our way to Pleasure Island.
You've got to step back and see the bigger picture. The direct motion of Pluto signals not only a fifteen year trend while in Capricorn, but a new ninety-five year trend in global economic policies and world political alliances we have not seen since the start of World War One. Think about that and draw your own conclusions.
Nobody can deny that unemployment and health care are certainly real concerns here in America, but they could actually turn out to be mere symptoms of a deeper and more serious unease underlying the collective psyche, and thus distractions from the enormity of the changes taking place in American societal values.
In astrological clinical situations we constantly witness the fact that Pluto brings enforced changes. It's never voluntary. It's rarely pleasant, and it always involves tremendous displacement and discomfort wherever it transits. In Capricorn it engenders fear on the part of leaders that their authority is being undermined and their power put in jeopardy. As a result they cling more fiercely to their positions. They pass their fear on to the people they govern, knowing full well that the way to control people is to make them afraid and give them the sense that only their leaders can protect them from calamity.
For a long time the masses accept this parent-child relationship. The few dissenting voices are silenced or passed off as wackos and even traitors. Little by little, however, corruption begins to be exposed and those who were supposedly being protected, eventually feel that they are not being protected, but oppressed. A confrontation between the forces of order and chaos becomes inevitable. In order to maintain social order, those in the position to govern seek to control the masses even more, mainly because they know that a revolution can cause more chaos than any oppressive or unjust regime it overthrows.
We are heading toward such a confrontation.
People aren't totally stupid. They know something is going on when stores are going out of business right and left and it costs twenty dollars to buy lettuce, tomatoes and mayonnaise they can't even make a sandwich with. On radio and TV they hear every day advertisements for those who are going to relieve them of their credit card debt, urge them to send in their gold for cash, promise quick cash for their homes to avoid foreclosure, and all sorts of seductive offers to give them the sense that somebody is going to save them.
For one thing there is nowhere to run and nobody is going to save you. This is not the moment to lift our eyes to a rainbow coming out of the clouds and walk toward it with glassy hope in our eyes. On the other hand, I'm not getting hysterical and heading for the hills with a generator and a hundred pounds of beef jerky. I feel hopeful, but only as I am willing to keep working my ass off. It's a period for grim determination and the knowledge that enlightened dedication is the key to prosperity. You have to know that you're going through it and you'll come out of it with no illusions that it's all behind you already. In every market place, competition is going to be keener than it has ever been in our lifetime. If you are in the work force and have a product or service to offer, you have to throw yourself into it and make sure that product or service is unique, elegant and economical. That is the path to economic prosperity. People are going to demand quality again. They can no longer afford to buy, throw out and buy new. Unique, elegant, economical. Remember those three words.
One more thing: Sooner rather than later you will have to take sides between those who refuse to yield to change and those who demand it.
Michael Lutin, www.michaellutin.com
Greg Tarpinian: There is Only One Durable Solution to the Economic Crisis
Most economists agree that until the consumer begins to "spend again," the economy is unlikely to grow at meaningful rates in the next several years. But when and how will that happen?
Stock prices go up and wages stay flat, and unemployment goes up.
Government always makes sure the rich get richer!
As to your second point, as an attorney I can assure you that you are 100% right. Current laws and tax structure is designed to funnel money upward. Think of the fairness of taxing wages higher than investment income.
But business stats are availible from your government with only a month lag time.
Business might be better, sort of, kind of, maybe. But America's not.
Everything I have read about the 'Great Depression' suggests we are headed into a similar pattern - although I hope we don't bottom out as hard or long. The stock markets (supposedly a leading indicator of economic change) dropped in 1929 (the drop we are all aware of) but rebounded for a time afterwards. The Stock markets didn't hit their hardest bottoms until ~1932. They went up a bit, then down a bit more, then up a fraction of that bit, then down harder again.
My guess - although I hope I am wrong - is that we will hit an intermediate stock market bottom again about Thanksgiving time when the lack of Christmas sales becomes evident. The stock market will then start to creep upwards again. Meantime, unemployment will hold relatively steady at ~10% for a quarter or so,... before starting to stagger down again.
We should be something resembling a new 'stable' beginning about this time next year. Then, we can start to put the pieces together again.
:D
Good looking out Lutin.
Hurray! And Sun Ra is saying whatever Sun Ra would say in approval.