The idea of 20 year tech booms is not well-supported by the historical evidence. Let's look at the performance of the S&P500 in constant dollars for the twenty years after 1945, the end of WW II, one of the trough wars. For comparison I show the index for the 1925-45 and 1965-85 periods as well:

http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex.../WWII-boom.gif

This figure clearly shows the 20 year boom after WW II.

Now let's look at the other two trough wars. First the Mexican war (1846-48) and then the Spanish-American War (1898). In the first figure we look at the stock index performance from 1848-68 compared to that from 1828-48 and 1868-88:

http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex...e/Mex-boom.gif

Next we look at the stock index performance from 1898-1918 compared to 1878-98 and 1918-1938.

http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex...anish-boom.gif

Neither of these figures show any evidence of the post-trough war boom.

So the whole idea of a twenty year boom that follows a trough war comes from the single example of the postwar stock boom. There is no evidence that it is a repeating phenomenon.

first, since the united states was little more than an emerging country in the 19th century i would suggest you would be better served to look at english stock prices at the time since that was the leading economy in the world at the time.

second, the 19th century was a in large part a disinflationary cycle so stage 3 boom periods might quite possibly be weaker. you might try examining those same periods in non-constant dollar terms.

lastly, the stock markets of the time were still small. i think anyone who looks at those periods though could hardly say that they were not extremely high periods of technological innovation during periods of relative peace.

the model i have used is not some idle mathematical exercise. it is a precise series of signposts that have recurred over and over again for the last 3 centuries that give you a very good idea of what major social, political and economic events to expect next. the pattern continues to repeat, has repeated over every real time test it has been put under since 1985, and looks very likely that it will continue to repeat in the future. only time will tell.
but unlike other theories bandied about it has been successfully tested in real time on 5 separate occasions now by predicting 1.the 87 crash along with its likely brevity, 2.the subsequent monetary expansion, 3.the probability of the gulf war being a small contained war that would be met with little protest,4. a technology based boom that would begin at the end of the recession after the end of the gulf war and 5. a bear market sometime around 2000-2001 that would signal the midpoint of the boom period. how many other such models have successfully passed that many tests?

but its validity will be held to the fire again based on how future events play out.

we should see a further resumption of the boom period into probably the end of this decade, followed by an unpopular war that, while likely to be fairly small in scope will also be unpopular and met with a great deal of protest and disillusionment by its conclusion. this war should be followed by a recession so deep that some will refer to it as a depression. this should then be followed by an inflationary period which i think, considering the fact that for the first time in history we now operate on a complete and total worldwide fiat currency system with no specie backing and that we are now in the second half of a long term inflation cycle, will give the united states a taste of south american or pre-world war II berlin style runaway inflation. this should then be followed by a massive monetary contraction that brings inflation under control but is accompanied by yet another extemely deep and serious recession. this contractionary phase also frequently brings to power very conservative political forces. this stage should then be followed by a period of widespread financial speculation.

many people do not yet realize that in the early part of next year, single stock futures are going to finally be introduced to the u.s. once that is done, for the first time since the early 20th century, the average person will have the leverage capabilites very close to what stock speculators back before the 29 crash had at their disposal. i suspect that it will be this stage 7 speculative period where the greatest fortunes will be made in this area as sufficient liquidity should then be well established. the day traders will return to the markets in greater force and numbers than they ever were before. and it will be all this speculative fervor coupled with massive government and consumer debt, demographic shifts, and mistakes in domestic and foreign policy, both then and in the past, that will bring about the final liquidation and the twilight of the united states as the pre-eminent economic and military power in the world.

the worst liquidation stages almost always occur in the second or third decade of a new century and this one looks to be coming right on schedule.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: enjolras on 2001-12-19 18:36 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: enjolras on 2001-12-19 18:56 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: enjolras on 2001-12-19 21:26 ]</font>

Uh, Robert, if that was true, then why did the economy staglate in the 1970s, but not the 1980s/1990s, when inflation was much lower?

Enjolras, I'm game, but can you assign rough dates to your predictions? Something that we can look back on & judge for accuracy?

On 2001-12-19 23:53, Chris Loyd '82 wrote:
Uh, Robert, if that was true, then why did the economy staglate in the 1970s, but not the 1980s/1990s, when inflation was much lower?

Enjolras, I'm game, but can you assign rough dates to your predictions? Something that we can look back on & judge for accuracy?

chris, i assume you mean going forward? if so, here is a sample:

1. we should be entering the second half of the technology boom period now. this should last until at least 2006 and probably until the 2009-2013 time frame.

2. the peak cycle unpopular war should occur in the 2009-2013 time frame. it may very well be that this is the culmination of this current "war" on terrorism if it does indeed become some sort of "crusade."

3. when this war ends, or perhaps even sometime during, a very serious and deep recession should begin that should produce far more serious unemployment and economic dislocation than this most recent recession. this coupled with demographic shifts starting to work against us should make the problem even worse.

4. this recession should be followed by a period of widespread inflation. my guesstimate would be this will be sometime around the middle of the next decade, 2015 or so.

5. around 2020, or perhaps even just before, i would expect political forces to come to power that will force a massive monetary contraction to bring inflation under control and force another deep recession.

6. at the end of that recession you should then see a 3-5 year period of widespread financial speculation, probably culminating before 2025.

7. the liquidation phase, i would guess, is due sometime in the 2025-2027 area. this would be coming a bit earlier than normal and i put it here because of the past accuracy of the 84 year crisis cycle which place the next major crisis period for the u.s. occurring very close to the year 2027, and this should be a trough war.

if cirumstances change i will alter things too. making long term predictions like this is difficult stuff if your purpose is to make money from it. you always have to maintain a certain degree of flexibility to flow with real world circumstances in case something unexpected occurs. but i have to say that since i started paying attention to this recurring pattern of events 15 years ago i continue to be amazed at how remarkably accurate it is as each critical juncture approaches.

1. we should be entering the second half of the technology boom period now. this should last until...

enjolras, Do you factor in a time-base difference due to the new speeds in which information is transferred within our current tech-system. With repect to waves: Does onset acceleration affect the backsides of waves? That is, it seems to me that acceleration spikes are much of the time mirrored in their fall.

I don't see how the five tests you refer to pepeatedly occurred in the past in a significant fashion.

Take the 1987 crash, which occurred 3 years before the 1990 trough war. This crash is supposed to be brief. For the 1898 trough war I can identify the Panic of 1893 as a similar event. Recovery in this case took five years. For the 1846-48 trough war I guess the Panic of 1837 would be the "1987-like" event. Recovery took about nine years for this crash.

For the 1941-45 trough war, which crash is the 1987-like event? Even if we ignore this trough war, we have "brief" being as long as nine years. *Every* crash and panic with the single exception of 1929-32 was "brief" by this definition. Thus the first "test" simply predicts that 1987 wasn't going to be another 1929. Well this is true of *every* other crash, except 1929. Not much of a test.

According to the model the Gulf War was supposed to be small and popular because it was a trough war, as opposed to big and unpopular peak wars. Well WW II was the biggest war of all and it was a trough war, and the War of 1812 was pretty small&short and not unpopular (Americans supported fighting the Brits) and it was a peak war. There are also several other conflicts (Korea, Phillipine insurrection, Russian intervention, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama invasion, that don't fall into the trough or peak war category. In Modern times they occur frequently enough that a peak/trough war candidate is available just about every decade. Thus, the war test is not really selective (it can happen at lots of other times, it doesn't mandate that a particular part of the cycle is here now).

I already showed that the idea of the two decades following trough wars contain a noticeable boom isn't supported by the historical record.

As for the current bear market I can think of no market collapse over the 1945-65 period that holds a candle to what we are going through today. The Panics of 1857 and 1907 serve well as a 2001-equivalent bear markets for your model, but as I showed in my graphs there was no resumption of the bull market after either Panic.

All in all, either historical events did not occur as your model describes, or the events which do comport are not special enough to be significant (i.e. they also occur at times not in accordance with your model).

It seems to me that there have not yet been any tests of significance. As Chris points out, your model ignores the 1980's boom and posits a 1992-2010 boom as the real tech boom. I agree that there are repeating 15-20 year booms, but I maintain they are driven by disinflation as much as by technology. I also say that they occur after K-peaks in interest rates. The K-peaks in interest rates were in 1814, 1861, 1920 and 1981, and the booms were 1815-35, 1861-81, 1921-29, 1982-2000. The 1920's one was cut short in the US by the development of a stock bubble whose collapse precluded a further advance after 1929. In Britain the bull market that started in 1921 resumed after 1929-32 and went to a higher peak in 1937.

See http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex...stretcom1.html

and http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex...S-UK-stock.htm for some British stock info

On 2001-12-20 07:51, Mike Alexander '59 wrote:
I don't see how the five tests you refer to pepeatedly occurred in the past in a significant fashion.

Take the 1987 crash, which occurred 3 years before the 1990 trough war. This crash is supposed to be brief. For the 1898 trough war I can identify the Panic of 1893 as a similar event. Recovery in this case took five years. For the 1846-48 trough war I guess the Panic of 1837 would be the "1987-like" event. Recovery took about nine years for this crash.

For the 1941-45 trough war, which crash is the 1987-like event? Even if we ignore this trough war, we have "brief" being as long as nine years. *Every* crash and panic with the single exception of 1929-32 was "brief" by this definition. Thus the first "test" simply predicts that 1987 wasn't going to be another 1929. Well this is true of *every* other crash, except 1929. Not much of a test.

According to the model the Gulf War was supposed to be small and popular because it was a trough war, as opposed to big and unpopular peak wars. Well WW II was the biggest war of all and it was a trough war, and the War of 1812 was pretty small&short and not unpopular (Americans supported fighting the Brits) and it was a peak war. There are also several other conflicts (Korea, Phillipine insurrection, Russian intervention, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama invasion, that don't fall into the trough or peak war category. In Modern times they occur frequently enough that a peak/trough war candidate is available just about every decade. Thus, the war test is not really selective (it can happen at lots of other times, it doesn't mandate that a particular part of the cycle is here now).

I already showed that the idea of the two decades following trough wars contain a noticeable boom isn't supported by the historical record.

As for the current bear market I can think of no market collapse over the 1945-65 period that holds a candle to what we are going through today. The Panics of 1857 and 1907 serve well as a 2001-equivalent bear markets for your model, but as I showed in my graphs there was no resumption of the bull market after either Panic.

All in all, either historical events did not occur as your model describes, or the events which do comport are not special enough to be significant (i.e. they also occur at times not in accordance with your model).

It seems to me that there have not yet been any tests of significance. As Chris points out, your model ignores the 1980's boom and posits a 1992-2010 boom as the real tech boom. I agree that there are repeating 15-20 year booms, but I maintain they are driven by disinflation as much as by technology. I also say that they occur after K-peaks in interest rates. The K-peaks in interest rates were in 1814, 1861, 1920 and 1981, and the booms were 1815-35, 1861-81, 1921-29, 1982-2000. The 1920's one was cut short in the US by the development of a stock bubble whose collapse precluded a further advance after 1929. In Britain the bull market that started in 1921 resumed after 1929-32 and went to a higher peak in 1937.

See http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex...stretcom1.html

and http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex...S-UK-stock.htm for some British stock info

1. the five tests were all predictions that i made at the time, based on the model, that all came to pass exactly as they were supposed to.

2. i anticipated that the 87 crash would be brief because it was a mid inflation cycle panic, using degersdorff's paired k-wave cycle hypothesis, and the unprecedented absense of a gold standard to weigh the economy down as it had in the past. i have also contended all along that this is why the aftermath of that crash, along with its position within the long inflation cycle, seems so insignificant in hindsight.

3. the period from the 1840s through the early 30s was a disinflationary cycle with a specie standard so it stands to reason that recoveries should have taken longer during such a period.

4. The panic that was analagous to 1987 was 1884.

5. peak wars are not necessarily "big" wars. they also are often small, contained affairs with the big wars usually following the 84 year crisis cycle pattern. they also often begin as "crusades" but then turn unpopular by their end. the war of 1812 was hardly a popular war. the capital was torched, it was widely considered an ineptly planned war, and it resulted in the whig party being driven out of existence.

6. a peak/trough war candidate is identified by the economic circumstances and catalysts surrounding it. if a war occurs and has been immediately preceded by a financial panic and a monetary expansion odds are its a trough war. if a war occurs and it is immediately preceded by a long technology/innovation boom that was immediately preceded by a popular war then odds are it qualifies as a peak war.

7. as i stated before, i don't think your use of stock market returns in constant dollar returns really proves anything. stock markets were in their infancy and so those results are likely to be suspect.

8. i do not ignore the 80s boom. it occurred after a monetary contraction engineered to bring an inflationary stage under control. it was what i labeled as a speculative stage 7 that immediately precedes a financial panic.

9. i will agree with you that a disinflationary environment probably has as much to do with the technology/innovation boom period as anything. and it is possible that nasdaq may never again go beyond its previous all time highs. but then i have always contended that nasdaq is little more than a glorified sector fund anyway. if you look at the dow industrials, for example, there has been very little real damage.

i also contend that we will continue to see stable inflation for a while longer along with stable interest rates which will send the economy higher on what i still say is another 5-10 years of further boom.

again, the proof is in the results. i have personally witnessed this model meet that challenge on 5 separate occasions now over the last 15 years. will it make it through the next 5? we shall see.

On 2001-12-20 07:46, Dave'71 wrote:

1. we should be entering the second half of the technology boom period now. this should last until...

enjolras, Do you factor in a time-base difference due to the new speeds in which information is transferred within our current tech-system. With repect to waves: Does onset acceleration affect the backsides of waves? That is, it seems to me that acceleration spikes are much of the time mirrored in their fall.

I guess I didn't make myself clear enough. Maybe Mike can help me with this. I'm far from an economist and much closer to an ecologist in my understanding of systems. But if you look at this simple graph [see note below] you will see NASDAQ and DJIA compared over the past 15 years or so. A spike in the NASDAQ and a wave in the DJIA is obvious. I understand that these waves are artificially high due to inflation and other factors. But still, the wave and spike are there, one can't deny it. Since I prefer ecological metaphors, I compare to graphs of, say, red tide algae blooms and see a similar pattern. One can also look at the heartbeat of man and see a spike and wave pattern. Or we can see this spike in many other systems that deal with populations that have accelerated growth. With respect to these biological populations, the level of acceleration into a curve is usually mirrored by a similar fall pattern on the backside of the bell-curve. Isn't that pattern what we should expect with our economy? And with respect to the concept of time-base differences: isn't the new speed of information transfer going to effect the time it takes for the system undergo the various economic stages?

[Well, the link didn't work, but you get the point. If you view these charts over the past 20 years, the spike is noticeable.]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Dave'71 on 2001-12-20 14:34 ]</font>

Dave, When viewing a stock index over a long period, a logarithimic scales is desirable.

Here is a log graph of the index performance over time.

http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex...e/st-com1a.gif

In investing, it is proportionate (percentage) gains and losses that are important not the absolute number of Dow points a for example. Obviously a 50 point Dow move today is pretty trivial, but it wasn't so in 1970.

enjolras, my problem is I don't see the pattern you describe for the 1985-2000 period having ever occurred before.
For example if 1884, which is 14 years before the trough, is similar to 1987, which is only three years before the trough, how is there a repeating pattern? After all, between 1884 and 1898 came a big depression, but none between 1987 and the Gulf War.

The other thing I don't get is what need is there for predictions between 1985 and 2000? The entire period was a secular bull market. Just buy the index and ride it up. Even as late as 1998, the long-term valuation on the market was still low enough to argue that it was 50-65% likely the bull market was not over yet. I went into the 1998 decline over 100% long (I certainly sweated some, but I believed the bull wasn't over--and it wasn't). I was only about 40% long after summer 1999 (and all in extreme value), because I believed it had ended in July 1999. It wasn't over in July 1999 either but getting out then wasn't a horribly bad move in retrospect, although it sure looked dumb in early 2000, see my early pages from 1997-99:

http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex...Mike/stock.htm
http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex.../Stanpoor.html
http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex.../Stanpor2.html
http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex...Stanpor3a.html

On 2001-12-20 16:00, Mike Alexander '59 wrote:
enjolras, my problem is I don't see the pattern you describe for the 1985-2000 period having ever occurred before.
For example if 1884, which is 14 years before the trough, is similar to 1987, which is only three years before the trough, how is there a repeating pattern? After all, between 1884 and 1898 came a big depression, but none between 1987 and the Gulf War.

The other thing I don't get is what need is there for predictions between 1985 and 2000? The entire period was a secular bull market. Just buy the index and ride it up. Even as late as 1998, the long-term valuation on the market was still low enough to argue that it was 50-65% likely the bull market was not over yet. I went into the 1998 decline over 100% long (I certainly sweated some, but I believed the bull wasn't over--and it wasn't). I was only about 40% long after summer 1999 (and all in extreme value), because I believed it had ended in July 1999. It wasn't over in July 1999 either but getting out then wasn't a horribly bad move in retrospect, although it sure looked dumb in early 2000, see my early pages from 1997-99:

http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex...Mike/stock.htm
http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex.../Stanpoor.html
http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex.../Stanpor2.html
http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex...Stanpor3a.html

mike,

you have to take into account that a entirely different cycle began in the 1930s than the one that we were in during the bulk of the 19th century. from the late 1830s until roughly 1932-33 we were in a 100-108 year disinflation cycle composed of two distinct but paired k-wave cycles. the 1884 panic was, i contend, the midpoint of that long disinflation cycle. the 1987 crash occurred at the midpoint, or the end of the first k-wave, within the new paired k-wave inflation cycle that began in the 1930s.

after the 1884 panic we saw a slow but steady increase in the money supply that was engineered through the sherman silver repurchase act and, after the act was repealed, by new gold disoveries in alaska and colorado. the panic of 1893 and its aftermath, i would contend, was an aberration as it was a reaction to concerns over the possible repeal of the sherman act which did occur in 1894, and produced another depression as you correctly point out. but subsequent gold discoveries made up for its repeal and the economy soon began follwing the normal pattern again.

this monetary expansion phase (stage 1) was followed by the spanish-american war (stage 2), a period of innovation and prosperity following the war that introduced into wide scale use the automobile, the airplane, radio and telephone. new methods of steel and aluminum production were introduced that revolutionized previous processes and electricity was introduced to the average businessman and homeowner (stage 3). this lasted into world war I (stage 4). after world war I, commodity and consumer prices rose non-stop and inflation hedge investments rose smartly(stage 5). in 1920 the u.s. senate adopted a resolution advising the federal reserve to take corrective measures to bring inflation under control which it did by raising the discount rate to record levels at the time and contracting the money supply (stage 6). in 1922 the recession precipitated by this contraction came to an end and the great speculative bull market of the 1920s was born (stage 7) leading into the final liquidation phase in 1929 (stage 8 ), thus bringing to a close the long disinflation cycle that began just after the panic of 1837.

there was no depression after the gulf war because the power of this inflation cycle was made even stronger by the removal of the u.s. dollar from the gold standard in the 30s by franklin roosevelt and the complete closure of the gold window altogether in the 70s by richard nixon. i liken it to a runner who had previously been forced to run with lead weights around his ankles, in this case gold and/or silver weights, now being able to run with no weights at all. recessions and panics that would have turned into outright depressions in disinflationary cycles of the past, and perhaps even some inflationary cycles of the past, came and went with sometimes hardly a blip. and this is what has caused so many people who have tried to call a top in the k-wave and forecast a deflationary depression to be so wrong for so many years now. the bottom of the first k-wave of this cycle came and went in the early 90s with hardly anyone noticing unless they focused on what the characteristics of such a bottom were and the timing and not necessarily the mathematics which were being skewed by the strength of inflation in this cycle brought on by a lack of a gold standard along with massively increased government spending worldwide. the lesson being that if you just use a quantitative approach to identify long cycle turning points, and forget the qualitative aspects, you will be doomed to endless frustrations as the cycle twists and turns in ways that you did not expect based on the numbers alone. but just as icarus flew too close to the sun and had his wings melted by the heat, so too do i contend that the end of the cycle we are in now will indeed bring about that great deflation that so many have been looking for, but not until the normal pattern has played itself out.

as for your question, "what was the need for predictions between 1985 and 2000?" well, when i first read that my first reaction was to laugh out loud. but then i realized that most of the people i am speaking to on here are either lay people or academics, so let me just say that the answer is because there is an ENORMOUS amount of money that can be made with this information.

for example, by recognizing in 1985 that we are in a stage 7 speculative period we know that historically such periods tend to favor large companies and bonds so we know that is where we want to have the bulk of our assets invested. but as this stage gets longer in the tooth we also know from the model that we are at great risk from a very large financial panic, so as the fundamental situation begins to deteriorate and the speculative fervor escalates we move more and more into cash or look for overvalued situations to sell short. when the liquidation phase does occur we will be primarily in cash or short the market and will profit handsomely as you would have done in 1987 since, while it may have been a relatively brief event, it still saw the greatest one day percentage decline in the history of the stock market, and i personally know of fortunes, both large and small, that were made in just that short period of time.

however, since the 1987 crash was also a mid inflation cycle panic, we also know that it is likely to be relatively brief and should be followed by a large monetary expansion which will be good for bonds. so as everyone is panicking we take our profits from our short sales, as well as our cash balances, and we purchase long bonds and pick up any stocks we like on the cheap, and profit accordingly.

now again, we also know from the model, that after this monetary expansion phase that the next signficant event is a war which is likely to be a relatively small, contained conflict since it is not falling into the 84 year crisis category. but we also know from history that wars are usually bullish for gold and oil prices and at least short term bearish for stocks and bonds. so with this in mind, as the sabres begin rattling louder we start adding gold and oil investments to our portfolio and cutting back or hedging our stock and bond holdings. when the actual shooting begins this is normally the classic "sell on the news" situation so we then sell our gold and oil holdings and snap up more stock and bond investments on any downturn over war fears while the war is going on and then gradually go more and more into cash as the war starts coming to an end in anticipation of the normal market lull after a popular trough war.

after a popular war is over, again according to the model, we now know that there are likely to be tremendous technological innovations introduced into the general populace that have a strong likelihood of transforming the way people live. so we start focusing our stock holdings more on technology and venture capital type investments. here again, according to the model, we know that typically about 10 years or so into it we should look for signs of froth in the markets to cut back on these investments in anticpation of the mid boom stage bear market. and then once signs become apparent that is over, and the monetary base begins moving upward again, we move right back into these areas until froth and speculative fervor begins to rear their heads again, and particularly when it appears that the next peak war is at hand. then, once again, we would look to go predominately into cash and look at adding gold and oil investments to our portfolio again as we did just prior to the stage 2 popular trough war, in anticipation of the stage 4 peak war breaking out.

i think that gives you something of an idea of why timing and "predictions" were so important during that period and will be even more so in the future.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: enjolras on 2001-12-21 16:54 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: enjolras on 2001-12-21 16:56 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: enjolras on 2001-12-21 17:03 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: enjolras on 2001-12-21 17:17 ]</font>

On 2001-12-19 12:34, enjolras wrote:

if you are truly interested in understanding then i suggest that you make haste to your local library and research robert degersdorff's article in the july, 1979 issue of cycles magazine, published by the foundation for the study of cycles, titled "long cycle timing of inflation", which covers his basic ideas concerning paired k-wave cycles of inflation and disinflation.

enjolras,
Do you know of any major library that carries this journal article. I can't locate it here in Minneapolis. Thanks.

On 2001-12-22 12:22, Crispy '59 wrote:

On 2001-12-19 12:34, enjolras wrote:

if you are truly interested in understanding then i suggest that you make haste to your local library and research robert degersdorff's article in the july, 1979 issue of cycles magazine, published by the foundation for the study of cycles, titled "long cycle timing of inflation", which covers his basic ideas concerning paired k-wave cycles of inflation and disinflation.

enjolras,
Do you know of any major library that carries this journal article. I can't locate it here in Minneapolis. Thanks.

most major city or university libraries will have cycles magazine in its stacks somewhere. have the reference librarian look it up for you if you have a problem finding it on your own. just make sure you ask for "cycles magazine", published by the foundation for the study of cycles, or you might get a copy of a motorcycle publication instead...LOL

Enjolras:


First, a picky point, but I noticed that you used a capital letter once in a previous post. This proves your computer is capable of generating such letters. It would be a lot less distracting and annoying if you would employ proper punctuation henceforth.


Second, let me ask you a hypothetical question. Suppose that a large asteroid were to crash into the planet and wipe out three-quarters of the human race, plunging the remainder of the planet into catastrophe and desperate attempts to preserve/rebuild civilization. Would this disrupt your theories and result in a failure of predictions?


That is not an idle question. It relates to something real (assuming, of course, that the hypothetical itself turns out not to be real), but I want your answer to the hypothetical before proceeding.

In Defense of enjolras:

Seems to be a generational archetype-thing. To wit,
e.e. cummings was, "most importantly, a poet. His poetry is known for its eccentric style, its unusual typography and spellings, and deliberate misuse of grammatical structure."


If Clinton gets to skate on lying to a Grand Jury because we are/were 3T, how much more shall we cut Mr. enjolras some slack on his 3T grammar? :smile:

On 2001-12-26 10:34, Brian Rush wrote:

Enjolras:

Second, let me ask you a hypothetical question. Suppose that a large asteroid were to crash into the planet and wipe out three-quarters of the human race, plunging the remainder of the planet into catastrophe and desperate attempts to preserve/rebuild civilization. Would this disrupt your theories and result in a failure of predictions?

If an asteroid does not get us, nuclear holocaust will. And if neither of these gets us, disease almost certainly will. I cannot help but believe that the earth will suffer a catastrophic population loss in the near future which is what makes these projections so difficult. Studies done 20-30 years ago showed then that an all out nuclear exchange with the Soviets would have set technology back to a 1929 level. What level of technology will survive nuclear annihilation and decimation by disease today? Throw in an asteroid collision and who knows how far back we go?

On 2001-12-26 10:34, Brian Rush wrote:

Studies done 20-30 years ago showed then that an all out nuclear exchange with the Soviets would have set technology back to a 1929 level. What level of technology will survive nuclear annihilation and decimation by disease today? Throw in an asteroid collision and who knows how far back we go?

What? Even an all out nuclear exchange wouldn't wipe out all the crappy pop culture? Ugh, KoRn on a Victorola...

Why would the set-back date be different from then than today? An "all out" nuke exchange (which I assumed is defined by covering every square inch of a given place under a mushroom cloud at least once) requires that there be lots of missiles and that one has the capability to launch said missiles. I think that such a possibility can and will exist in the future (meaning not at this very second as I type this). As for plague, well, the Black Death occurred when people were moving about, from city to city, from region to region. Are we assuming a great deal of human movement following an "all out" attack?

I'm not going to offer answers to any of these questions due to lack of information, but I do want to be sure of what is being asked. Asteroid? How big? Size of a car? House? Mount Everest?

On 2001-12-26 10:34, Brian Rush wrote:
Enjolras:


First, a picky point, but I noticed that you used a capital letter once in a previous post. This proves your computer is capable of generating such letters. It would be a lot less distracting and annoying if you would employ proper punctuation henceforth.


Second, let me ask you a hypothetical question. Suppose that a large asteroid were to crash into the planet and wipe out three-quarters of the human race, plunging the remainder of the planet into catastrophe and desperate attempts to preserve/rebuild civilization. Would this disrupt your theories and result in a failure of predictions?


That is not an idle question. It relates to something real (assuming, of course, that the hypothetical itself turns out not to be real), but I want your answer to the hypothetical before proceeding.

of course it would very likely disrupt the normal pattern of the model i have outlined. the pattern is based on recurring tendencies in mass human behavior and obviously a natural disaster of that magnitude would interrupt it. we even saw it on a smaller scale back in the 1890s when just as we had entered a stage 1 monetary expansion phase, given real legs by the sherman silver repurchase act, wrongheaded members of congress and the president at the time, grover cleveland, engineered the repeal of that act which, i contend, was largely responsible for another market panic and depression before new gold discoveries in alaska and colorado brought forth enough of a monetary expansion to put the normal pattern of the cycle back into place again.

so to answer your question, yes, it would disrupt things for a while at least. but i would say that it was also very likely that once things calmed down you would see the pattern quickly begin to re-emerge.

On 2001-12-26 11:54, Marc S. Lamb wrote:



In Defense of enjolras:

Seems to be a generational archetype-thing. To wit,
e.e. cummings was, "most importantly, a poet. His poetry is known for its eccentric style, its unusual typography and spellings, and deliberate misuse of grammatical structure."


If Clinton gets to skate on lying to a Grand Jury because we are/were 3T, how much more shall we cut Mr. enjolras some slack on his 3T grammar? :smile:

thank you mr. lamb. at long last someone finally GETS IT! sheesh!

If an asteroid does not get us, nuclear holocaust will. And if neither of these gets us, disease almost certainly will. I cannot help but believe that the earth will suffer a catastrophic population loss in the near future which is what makes these projections so difficult. Studies done 20-30 years ago showed then that an all out nuclear exchange with the Soviets would have set technology back to a 1929 level. What level of technology will survive nuclear annihilation and decimation by disease today? Throw in an asteroid collision and who knows how far back we go?

actually, i do agree with you stonewall. my biggest fear is that at the end of this cycle that we do indeed enter a new "dark" age, particularly in the western world which i think may turn out to be the hardest hit as it is the biggest target.

we are in the second half of a long term inflation cycle now. when that comes to an end with the resounding thud that i suspect it will, it should then usher in a 100-108 year period of deflation and/or disinflation in the west which, i suspect, will be coupled with a gradual loss of military and economic power from the west to the east as the 500 year cycle of global power begins to shift in earnest. this could very easily be the result of some nuclear or biological confrontation, some huge natural catastrophe or all of the above. exactly what will cause it is anyone's guess. but what does seem to be apparent is where the tide seems to be leading. this then begs the question...is it even possible to avoid going over the falls, either collectively or individually, considering the boat that previous generations have currently put us in? and if it is, then what must we do? how can we protect ourselves and our families, both personally and financially, etc.? and what policies must our representatives put into motion to, if nothing else, stem the tide that, if these current foreshadowings do not change, will be rushing faster and faster in upon us in the years to come?

Enjolras:


Cummings wrote poetry. You are writing prose. Prose calls for clarity. Clarity is improved by non-distracting punctuation.


However, to keep things consistent for your Clinton-obsessed defender, I do not suggest that this is an impeachable offense. I am merely requesting, politely, that you abandon the affectation in the interests of clarity.


Now, regarding that meteor. All purely economic theories of this nature run into the problem, eventually, that economics is not a closed system. Even when it is treated as one, purely economic actions such as the departure from the gold standard can, as you observed, turn a spiral of deflation into one of inflation, changing the entire nature of the alleged cycle. Your model would not have predicted any of the post-Depression economic events from the standpoint of 1920.


But the main point is that economics is not a closed system. It is a wholly-dependent subfunction of ecology, and within that, of international and national politics. No outcome of an economic model can violate rules of ecology, any more than a living organism (which in itself operates under the rules of biology) can evolve an ability which violates the laws of physics.


We don't (I hope) face a meteor collision. But we do face a collision with ecological limits, and indeed are already engaged in such a collision. We also face global chaotic war, partly driven by that ecological collision.


I doubt your predictions for the future because I do not see any way in which they can come true. Your model is being disrupted by a meteor. Or the equivalent.

On 2001-12-27 09:54, Brian Rush wrote:
Enjolras:


Cummings wrote poetry. You are writing prose. Prose calls for clarity. Clarity is improved by non-distracting punctuation.


However, to keep things consistent for your Clinton-obsessed defender, I do not suggest that this is an impeachable offense. I am merely requesting, politely, that you abandon the affectation in the interests of clarity.


Now, regarding that meteor. All purely economic theories of this nature run into the problem, eventually, that economics is not a closed system. Even when it is treated as one, purely economic actions such as the departure from the gold standard can, as you observed, turn a spiral of deflation into one of inflation, changing the entire nature of the alleged cycle. Your model would not have predicted any of the post-Depression economic events from the standpoint of 1920.


But the main point is that economics is not a closed system. It is a wholly-dependent subfunction of ecology, and within that, of international and national politics. No outcome of an economic model can violate rules of ecology, any more than a living organism (which in itself operates under the rules of biology) can evolve an ability which violates the laws of physics.


We don't (I hope) face a meteor collision. But we do face a collision with ecological limits, and indeed are already engaged in such a collision. We also face global chaotic war, partly driven by that ecological collision.


I doubt your predictions for the future because I do not see any way in which they can come true. Your model is being disrupted by a meteor. Or the equivalent.

is it my imagination, or does anal retentiveness seem to run rampant through certain parts of this site???? i don't think that anyone that is sincerely interested in understanding and benefiting from the concepts i have outlined is at all distracted by my pet grammatical idiosyncracies on a MESSAGE BOARD!!! now, enough of this nonsense!

your statement that "your model would not have predicted any of the post-depression economic events from the standpoint of 1920" is simply false. the basic pattern and signposts are the same regardless of whether you are in a long inflationary or disinflationary cycle. usually, it is only their length and depth that changes. but the basic pattern remains the same: monetary expansion, popular war, boom, unpopular war, inflation, monetary contraction, speculative excess and liquidation.

your ecological arguments are interesting, brian, but on what past precedent or pattern is this assumption of yours based? everything i have said is based on a clearly defined pattern of recurring events. they have occurred before, following this pattern i have outlined, and they appear to be recurring again in a very similar pattern.

you state that we are on a "collision with ecological limits", but what makes you think that "collision" is going to occur anytime soon? i have heard similar arguments being made for the last 20-25 years, and yet we still manage to muddle along somehow. what makes you think that it is not just as likely that some enterprising soul might invent some new technology that would prevent this ecological catastrophe, or push it much further out into the future?

every economic or financial model carries with it "unexpected event" risk, which is what you are describing. but it is impossible to plan anything by focusing primarily on that kind of unlikely, yet possible, event. if you did, you would never get out of bed in the morning.

so, that being said, barring collision with a meteor or asteroid, an unexpected nova of our sun, some global biological crisis for which no cure or solution can be found, the return of elvis or the second coming, i am quite confident the pattern will continue as it has in the past. but, as i have also said before, if something should happen to alter the pattern there are usually very clear actions to take to adjust for them. it normally just takes a clear head and some experience with crowd psychology.

Enjolras:

i don't think that anyone that is sincerely interested in understanding and benefiting from the concepts i have outlined is at all distracted by my pet grammatical idiosyncracies on a MESSAGE BOARD!!!

You're mistaken.

the basic pattern and signposts are the same regardless of whether you are in a long inflationary or disinflationary cycle. usually, it is only their length and depth that changes.

As a matter of practical preditive power, a model that cannot distinguish between the stock market crashes of 1929 and 1987 without outside information such as the fact that the country went off the gold standard in between (if that was the real difference; I might suggest some others) is of limited usfefulness. Reactions to 1987 as if it were 1929 all over again would obviously have been overblown on the side of caution.


I think you're making a mistake of a similar magnitude, but in the opposite direction, regarding the near future.

your ecological arguments are interesting, brian, but on what past precedent or pattern is this assumption of yours based?

There are other modes of reasoning and induction/deduction besides "past precedents or pattern." One may, for example, derive scientific laws and principles from data and from those laws deduce predictions that have no exact precedent whatsoever.


For example, it was possible to predict that if uranium-235 in sufficient quantity were jammed together suddenly, a chain reaction would take place delivering a nuclear explosion, despite the fact that no nuclear explosion had ever occurred before. There was no precedent at all, but there were sufficient data to derive principles of nuclear physics, from which the prediction followed -- and turned out to be accurate.


There are several reasons I believe that the collision with ecological limits has already begun, and will prevent the rosy economic near-term future that you predict. These include the following:


<ul>[*]The developing water shortages in various parts of the world, that are already resulting in armed conflicts over water.[*]The AIDS epidemic, which has now reached Black Death proportion in Africa and will, unless somehow stopped, have reached similar proportions throughout much of Asia in ten years. It will become even worse in Africa over those same ten years.[*]The fact that half the world's easily-accessible petroleum will have been pumped by the end of this decade, at which point it will no longer be possible to increase the production of oil; thereafter it will only decrease.[*]The accelerating problem of global warming, which will have a measurable economic effect by ten years from now, if not sooner.[/list]


There are also purely economic reasons why I believe you are mistaken. One of these is the fact that our industrial economy is dependent for its health on a broad distribution of wealth, limited in its inequality. Too little money in the hands of most people means too little buying power to sustain the consumer market means economic recession or depression. This is a global problem, not an American one. On a global scale, the discrepancies in wealth are at least as bad as they were in America in the 1920s. The only thing that would give us a healthy global economy -- setting aside ecological considerations -- would be about a tenfold pay raise throughout the Third World.


Some things have no precedent. Some things are genuinely new. That is the biggest problem I have with your cyclical theories. To the extent they have any validity, they are dependent on some causative factors, and you do not identify these. That being the case, we have no way of knowing whether they are still operative, or whether regularities observed in the past were due to causative factors that no longer obtain.


I don't believe they are, for the reasons stated above.

On 2001-12-27 22:26, Brian Rush wrote:
Enjolras:

i don't think that anyone that is sincerely interested in understanding and benefiting from the concepts i have outlined is at all distracted by my pet grammatical idiosyncracies on a MESSAGE BOARD!!!

You're mistaken.

---------------------------------------------
no, i don't think i am. so let's just leave it at that, ok?

---------------------------------------------

the basic pattern and signposts are the same regardless of whether you are in a long inflationary or disinflationary cycle. usually, it is only their length and depth that changes.

As a matter of practical preditive power, a model that cannot distinguish between the stock market crashes of 1929 and 1987 without outside information such as the fact that the country went off the gold standard in between (if that was the real difference; I might suggest some others) is of limited usfefulness. Reactions to 1987 as if it were 1929 all over again would obviously have been overblown on the side of caution.
---------------------------------------------
you keep harping on this over and over again and i keep repeating myself. 1929 and 1987 were similar but very different events. they were similar in that they were both liquidation stages but they occurred during different inflation/disinflation cycles and one occurred in the midpoint of a cycle and one at the end making for very different animals.

----------------------------------------------


I think you're making a mistake of a similar magnitude, but in the opposite direction, regarding the near future.

your ecological arguments are interesting, brian, but on what past precedent or pattern is this assumption of yours based?

There are other modes of reasoning and induction/deduction besides "past precedents or pattern." One may, for example, derive scientific laws and principles from data and from those laws deduce predictions that have no exact precedent whatsoever.


For example, it was possible to predict that if uranium-235 in sufficient quantity were jammed together suddenly, a chain reaction would take place delivering a nuclear explosion, despite the fact that no nuclear explosion had ever occurred before. There was no precedent at all, but there were sufficient data to derive principles of nuclear physics, from which the prediction followed -- and turned out to be accurate.


There are several reasons I believe that the collision with ecological limits has already begun, and will prevent the rosy economic near-term future that you predict. These include the following:


<ul>[*]The developing water shortages in various parts of the world, that are already resulting in armed conflicts over water.[*]The AIDS epidemic, which has now reached Black Death proportion in Africa and will, unless somehow stopped, have reached similar proportions throughout much of Asia in ten years. It will become even worse in Africa over those same ten years.[*]The fact that half the world's easily-accessible petroleum will have been pumped by the end of this decade, at which point it will no longer be possible to increase the production of oil; thereafter it will only decrease.[*]The accelerating problem of global warming, which will have a measurable economic effect by ten years from now, if not sooner.[/list]


There are also purely economic reasons why I believe you are mistaken. One of these is the fact that our industrial economy is dependent for its health on a broad distribution of wealth, limited in its inequality. Too little money in the hands of most people means too little buying power to sustain the consumer market means economic recession or depression. This is a global problem, not an American one. On a global scale, the discrepancies in wealth are at least as bad as they were in America in the 1920s. The only thing that would give us a healthy global economy -- setting aside ecological considerations -- would be about a tenfold pay raise throughout the Third World.


Some things have no precedent. Some things are genuinely new. That is the biggest problem I have with your cyclical theories. To the extent they have any validity, they are dependent on some causative factors, and you do not identify these. That being the case, we have no way of knowing whether they are still operative, or whether regularities observed in the past were due to causative factors that no longer obtain.


I don't believe they are, for the reasons stated above.

your reasoning is extremely linear when everything around us suggests just the opposite. furthermore your example using uranium 235 just does not hold up as that is a totally different scenario. that theory can actually be tested to prove whether it is correct or not. it is just as likely that solutions to the problems you describe could be discovered as it is for those problems to grow out of control.

your theory, or whatever you call it, can not be tested. its never occurred before so we have no way of knowing how it would have performed or will perform. i agree that sometimes things that are genuinely "new" crop up, but before we rush whole hog into accepting a "new" idea let's see some hard evidence that its actually having a concrete effect first.

i can tell you haven't really had a lot of experience with markets because their standards are especially strict. if a theory does not work in real life, the markets take your money away. its that simple. and if you can't test a theory, as yours can't be tested, then no money is made period, so again the test is failed.

when you have a theory that can actually be tested in real life, where you have something real at stake besides just words, i will be happy to take it seriously, but until then all you have is just more ivory tower academic theorizing which can not be proven or disproven through real time testing making it worth absolutely nothing.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: enjolras on 2001-12-28 04:14 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: enjolras on 2001-12-28 04:15 ]</font>

your ecological arguments are interesting, brian, but on what past precedent or pattern is this assumption of yours based?

If I may respond:

All you need to do is look at forest succession for comparison. Take a Pacific Northwest forest. Its primary energy source comes from the sun. Species and forest morphologies succeed each other in a predictable pattern until maximum use of sunlight is maintained, after which decomposers feed on forest waste. When the sun-consumer/waste-decomposer balance is maintained, debris usually begins to accumulate. As the waste builds, fire hazard increases. It is indeterminable at what point lightning will strike and burn the forest, but it will eventually happen. NW forests are under a 200-500 average fire cycle. But no matter what (unless it's a rainforest), the forest will burn one day. And it burns due to accumulated waste. Each of the features of this process can be used as metaphors for Mankind's economic processes and functions.

I would be interested to see how someone (Brian?, enroljas?) would fill in the blanks below. Try mapping out the forest ecology features below to their economic relative:

Succession stages =
1) first wave succession period (pioneer species) =
2) understory succession period (slow growers emerge from below) =
3) waste accumulation period =
4) fire =

Energy Pyramid =
a) primary energy source (sun) =
b) primary consumers (plants) =
c) secondary consumers (animals) =
d) decomposers (bacteria, fungi) =
e) unrecyclable waste (accumulating biomass, increases fire hazard) =

Primary Cycles =
a) water cycle (medium for energy transfer) =
b) carbon cycle (see Energy Pyramid above) =
c) nitrogen cycle (essential for system integrity) =

What is so beautiful about the fire in a forest system is that fire restores the system and brings new growth and life potential to the system. Fire also increases integrity of the system and strengthens all of the morphologies, species and their genetics within the forest.

Likewise it is said in Mark 9:49:
Everyone will be salted with fire. "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other."

Enjolras:

no, i don't think i am. so let's just leave it at that, ok?

No, I'm not willing to leave it at that. I also have to say that you're not only mistaken, but also childish, petty, needlessly obscure, and obnoxious. You've characterized this as a Nomad affectation by comparing it to the poet Cummings (or cummings), but it bears a much greater resemblance to stuff that Boomers would do back in our college days just to be rude in what we thought were cute ways.


Of course, if you insist on being all those things, there's really nothing anyone can do to stop you.

your reasoning is extremely linear when everything around us suggests just the opposite.

Even the cyclic phenomena we observe have linear mechanisms underlying them; none exists as a primary cause. But that seems to be what you want your economic cycles to stand as, a primary cause. The generational cycle, for instance, has technological and social progress as its driving mechanism, sideswiped by human tendencies to conservatism which produce the rhythmic advance-stop activity which produces the generations and the Turnings.


It's the same way in physics, too. Take the motion of an orbiting satellite. That is properly described as the interaction of two linear forces, the gravitational pull toward the center of the earth and the momentum of the satellite itself. One moves the satellite down, the other moves it sideways, and the combination of the two marks a circle (or more commonly an elipse).


What is the linear mechanism underlying your economic cycles? There needs to be one, or more than one.

it is just as likely that solutions to the problems you describe could be discovered as it is for those problems to grow out of control.

Fifty years ago -- maybe even twenty years ago -- that statement would have been true. Today, it is not. Some of the problems I described are already out of control, and to solve the others, time is growing very short indeed.

your theory, or whatever you call it, can not be tested.

Of course it can; just wait ten years and look and see. It will either be proven entirely correct, proven entirely incorrect, or proven to require modification.

i can tell you haven't really had a lot of experience with markets

I can tell you haven't really had a lot of experience with manners.


But I already knew that.


You're wrong again, incidentally.

all you have is just more ivory tower academic theorizing which can not be proven or disproven

Translation: "I don't know how to answer the objections you raised because they refer to scientific method, of which I am woefully ignorant, and so I will dismiss your ideas in such a way that I can justify ignoring them to myself."


Your privilege, of course.