Economic winters correlate primarily with the cycles of Saturn, which takes an average of 29.5 Earth years to orbit the Sun. Since the USA became a nation, great depressions (as compared to recessions and less severe depressions) have coincided with Saturn's cycles in the 1780s, 1840s, 1870s and 1930s. The 1890s and other economic dips were called "great depressions" in their time, but did not qualify in terms of depth and length.

Each truly great-depression decade has coincided with Saturn's 30-year transit through the constellation Capricorn. Every 30 years there have been economic adjustments of one kind or another but great depressions occur only when Saturn in Capricorn is simultaneously 90 degrees from another of the "malefic" planets in Aries.

(Planets called "malefic" are the most distant—Pluto, Neptune, Uranus—plus Saturn and Mars, because they have historically brought difficulties when forming "hard" angles to each other and simultaneously to the positions of planets in a nativity, i.e., the USA's "birth," calculated for July 4, 1776 when the American colonies separated from the "mother country.")

Even though planetary cycles are not mechanically precise, they provide what is needed to more accurately forecast when the next economic period of difficulty will arrive. If economists were students of astro-economic cyclical correlations, the next great depression would not sandbag us; we'd be able to anticipate it, prepare for it.

And because the Mayan 13 baktun cycle and the 26,000 year Precession of the Equinoxes are due to "click" in 2012 (simultaneous with a Uranus-Pluto square powerfully "afflicting" the USA's natal San/Saturn square), we'd be ready to batten down the hatches as we head into an economic storm—if economists studied astrology—and we'd be ready to debate how best to restore economic balance, instead of playing the blame game.

In Astrology and Stock Market Forecasting, published in 1936, Louise McWhirter said: “The way conditions exist today, man is the victim of the business cycle. With detailed charts and graphs, he can tell you when business began to pick up, and when a recession started, but he cannot tell you these factors in advance, with all his statistical research, because he has no time factor.”

Astrology provides that time factor, as McWhirter went on to show in her book, connecting stock market ups and downs with the 18.6 year cycle of the Moon's Nodes. Her system has since been refined, and it's been found that the real estate cycle also correlates with the Moon's Nodes.

Saturn takes about 30 Earth years to complete one orbit around the Sun, Uranus 84 years, Neptune 164 years and Pluto 248 years (although Pluto's orbit is the most erratic). Those four are the primary "astro-economic indicators." Add Mars because it often triggers their effects.

By reviewing history to find what astronomical patterns formed during past great depressions, wars and social upheavals, we can find repeating signature aspects. The logical surmise is that when these same signatures will repeat, another such time will be due. We can then do what's called a transit study to assess the impact of such a time on a specific person, company, organization or nation.

Every time the USA has gone through a great depression, the outermost slowest-moving planets have formed an aspect astrologers call a grand cross with the USA's natal Sun and Saturn—the positions Sun and Saturn occupied when the USA was "born" in 1776. The grand cross "affliction" is the most malefic, harsh and challenging of all aspects. When Saturn transits through Capricorn without forming this grand cross pattern, no great depression occurs.

Every time Uranus has returned to its natal position in the US birth chart, America has experienced its worst wars: the American Revolution, Civil War and Second World War. Hard angles from Uranus have also marked other wars, including the present war against those labeled terrorists, which slowly but surely gathered momentum as Pluto moved opposite the US natal Uranus. (Pluto is sometimes symbolized as a saboteur.)

Since Columbus, every 248-year transit of Pluto through the area of the heavens it's now in has coincided with 15-20 year periods of rapid, revolutionary and long-lasting change. In the early 1500s, Spanish and other explorers were bringing Christianity, guns and small pox to the Americas; the 1760s and 1770s, following the French and Indian War, were years of discontent culminating in the American Revolution of 1776.

Now, as then, there is rapidly growing discontent between the people and their rulers. Cartoons depicting President George Bush as King George and other such commentaries indicate an intuiting of this link between then and now. Pluto is famous for bringing an atmosphere of bull-headedness, and that's glaringly evident in contemporary political affairs. Pluto's revolutionary effects begin with a chaotic breakdown of the established order—9/11, Enron, Afghanistan, Iraq, rampant corruption in the military-industrial complex, a crumbling public education system, a dysfunctional health care system, the list goes on and on. In the Islamic world, the masses are also on a collision course with their rulers. The old must give way for the new to arise. Protectors of the status quo battle valiantly, but the only constant is change, and during these 248-year cycles, change accelerates dramatically.

We will look back on this period between 2000 and 2020 as the most contentious and difficult in our history: that's the astrological prediction based on past cycles of Pluto combined with upcoming malefic aspects between Uranus and Pluto, in concert with the Mayan 13 baktun or long cycle of 5,126 of our years.

Conjunctions, oppositions and square aspects formed by Uranus and Pluto have impacted US history from the Jamestown colony (1607) onward. Most recently, Uranus and Pluto came conjunct with both while also conjunct the US natal Neptune in the mid-1960s; you may be old enough to remember the uniqueness and tempestuousness of the Sixties.

Uranus-Pluto squares that simultaneously formed harsh angles to key points in the USA's horoscope have marked major turning points in American history:

Uranus and Pluto will form their next square angle beginning in 2008 and lasting a record long time till 2019. This aspect will be tightening its orb by 2012. It will be most exact in 2014 and 2015.

Oppositions formed by Saturn and Pluto have also proven significant in US history. These oppositions form about every 33 years. The most recent coincided with the attack of 9/11/2001, the one before that with the Sixties, and the one before that with the Great Depression of the 1930s.

This brief recap is not intended to imply that we humans are rendered helpless by harsh planetary angles. Just as we are prepared and equipped for the cold of winters, we can be prepared to deal in positive ways with economic winters.

Robert Gover's book Time and Money: the Economy and the Planets came out in late May, 2005. Euromoney Magazine reviewed it in late 2005. Robert has partnered with a fund manager in Florida, Mike Mansfield, to do a financial newsletter. Robert was the featured speaker at a conference of investors from around the world in Denver on September 24, 2005, He has a BA in economics and has studied astrology since 1965. By the mid-1970s, he had become interested in stock market astrology, and by the mid-1980s, with the advent of astrological software, his interest had expanded to the whole economy. Time and Money may be purchased from www.hopepubs.com, or amazon, B&N and other online vendors, as well as book stores. Robert is a memmber of the International Society of Astrological Research, the International Society of Business Astrologers, and the American Federation of Astrologers. He is also a novelist, and the latest edition of his most famous book One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding can be purchased at most online bookstores. His other novels may be obtained from used or rare book dealers. He has written one other nonfiction book: Voodoo Contra, about the conradictory meanings of that ominous word.