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In
economics, as in football, most people ignore the scouting report and go to the
pep rally. We want our side to win and bad news is a downer. Most investors were
happily participating in the pep rally during the roaring bull market of the past
20 years. Few heeded the scouting reports. Thus most were caught by surprise when
the bears came out to play. I realize nobody likes a Cassandra but I am of the
opinion that if you can make love, dance and tell jokes, you won't be totally
ostracized for delivering the scouting report, even when it warns of hard times
ahead.
I
applaud Raymond Merriman for exploring the 72-year cycle his research discovered.
(1) It's due to "bottom" in 2004, having last done so in 1932, and before
that in 1860, and in 1788. In 1932 we had the great depression of the 1930s; in
1860 we had the Civil War; and in the 1780s the US suffered its first great depression,
said by some economic historians to have been as severe as the most recent, the
1930s. (I'm talking here of great depressions as defined differently from recessions
or what are often loosely called depressions.) In
retrospect, the roaring bull of the 1980s and 1990s now
looks like a gigantic pump-and-dump scheme to defraud investors and pensioners
of their rightful earnings. It's also coming clear in retrospect that our esteemed
and illustrious Congress men and women enabled this gigantic pump-and-dump scheme
by abolishing some regulations and disabling the enforcement of others. Well,
they needed campaign funds and guess who provided those. Just about everyone went
to the pep rally and ignored the scouting report. This is nothing new in Wall
Street history. Fourteen
days before the Wall Street crash of October 29, 1929, Yale Professor of Economics
Irving Fisher led cheers by saying, "In a few months I expect to see the
stock market much higher than today." Today, as I write this, you could run
out of fingers and toes counting guests on financial news shows who predict another
bull market a few months down the road. Merriman's
prognostication is much more complex. He sees an uptick before a long slide: "...a
very impressive multi-month rally is ready to begin—either with the low forming
now (July 29, 2002), or with one that will form between this October and next
January." But after that: "I think the market will continue downward
into this time band (the 72-year cyclical bottom between 2004 and 2016) before
the real end of the big bear market is over." One
of the ways astrology amazes is that it continually shows us there are more ways
than one to foresee the same future economic conditions. Merriman's cycle is one.
Louise McWhirter's charting of the Moon's Nodes is another. (2) There are others.
My own
system looks for correlations between historic economic turning points (such as
great depressions and stock market panics) and planetary patterns. The most precise
I've found is the grand cross anchored by Saturn in mid-Capricorn and square another
"heavy" planet in mid-Aries with both opposite and square the US natal
Sun-Saturn square. That one has never failed to coincide with great depressions.
(3) I've also isolated a pattern, shown by using biwheel or synastry charts, which
has been extant when stock market crashes have happened, going back to 1857. To
show these historic events I use biwheels with the US natal chart on the inner
wheel and the transiting planets for the event on the outer wheel. My biwheels
show how Merriman's 72-year cycle impacts the US natal planets in Gemini and Cancer,
the two most economically sensitive areas in the US chart. The following four
charts illustrate this.  Chart
#1 shows the Saturn-Uranus opposition precise in November of 2008, as per Merriman's
72-year cycle.
Chart
#2 shows the November 2008 pattern on the outer wheel and the US natal planets
on the inner wheel, revealing that the Saturn-Uranus opposition is conjunct and
opposite the US Neptune, which in turn is square the US Mars in Gemini. Venus at 20 Sagittarius at this time opposite the US Mars square Neptune completes a
grand cross pattern, which many astrologers consider the most difficult of aspects.
This is practically certain to find the stock market decisively down. Merriman
tells us his cycles have an orb of about 1/6th of their medium length, "Thus
the current 72-year cycle is due to bottom within 12 years of 2004." Chart
#3 is for 2015 when Saturn in Sagittarius will come within orb of a beneficent
120 degree tine to Uranus in Aries. This
trine will be in conflict with a double grand cross as shown. The first grand
cross will be formed by Uranus opposite Mars and both afflicting the US's natal
Saturn, and both square an opposition between transiting Pluto and the US Sun at 13 Cancer. The second grand cross is composed of Neptune and Chiron in Pisces
opposite the US Neptune in Virgo and transiting Jupiter, with all those planets
square the US Mars at 20 Gemini, and opposite that, the Sun at 23 Sagittarius.
So my
scouting report suggests the present bear market will hit bottom around November
2008, for this is when the US Mars/Neptune square will be most heavily afflicted,
mainly by the powerful Uranus. I believe the overall economy will be at its lowest
in the mid-2000-teens when the grand cross formed by transiting Uranus square
Pluto will afflict the US Sun/Saturn square. Since the economy (how we provide
for our needs and wants) is the essence of culture, the 2000-teens is when we
can expect Pluto's effects to bring us the most dramatic turning point in US history.
Notes:
1.
Market WeekThe Virtuous Circle | 
