At CSIA today, we are listening to an exceptionally realistic talk by Alan Beaulieu of the Institute for Trend Research. "Don't give me any negative forecasts, Alan," his clients tell him often. He can accommodate them. "Your company will grow by 10% next year," he tells them, "plus or minus 20 percentage points."
"Look at this curve on the chart. Yes, you are right. It is a 'pelican beak' which is very rare in accounting, to see a pelican beak. Yes, I've been spending a little too much time with my charts. Also works to keep people away from you on the airplane."
Interest rates are at a historical low, and this is probably the lowest it will ever be.
"US industrial production to corpoarte bond prices. Bonds lead through the entire time from 1975 to the present, even through Democrats and Republicans, even with Disco introduced to our country."
This tells us we are on track for 2007-2008. We should see a contraction in 2007 and 2008. 2006-2007 is rising outlook.
"The stock market is moving sideways, which doesn't have anything to do with the economy, but I tried to be all excited for you."
Investments in things that have to do with taking care of older people are going to do well. Invest in energy as well.
"We are not running out of oil. That is a myth. It is merely a question of how much to pay for the oil we have."
"Globally, GE is making lots of money selling windmills..."
"Look for companies that leapfrog in technologies."
"If you want to invest in technology, invest in nanotechnology."
"Education does very well in a downturn. I'm talking about private schools like the University of Phoenix. People who get laid off go back to school."
"If you are worried about your home prices, we've only had one, not very steep period where prices went down, and it didn't last long, and it won't happen again."
"2009 will be a great time to buy vacation property in the overbuilt areas like Florida."
"We are spending like crazy. The graph looks like a heartbeat, doesn't it? You can't have a recession with consumer behavior like this. We're spending a lot of money, but we are just not happy about it."
"Housing starts will slow down, and that tells us that we are on target for our downturn forecast in 2007."
The budget shortfall has improved. If you notice that the budget shortfalls since 1912 correlate to unity with wars and military spending you are right.
Peace cuts back the budget shortfall.
"The dollar could easily melt down if one of the big buyers of T-bills stops. China, Japan, etc. could tank the US economy."
We will come up with a technological solution to the debt and the oil problem. America has a history of being nimble. There are lots of things we can do. There are answers out there. Get behind http://fairtax.org if you want to really do something to effect change.
"If Wal-Mart was a nation, it would have a bigger GDP than Saudi Arabia. The general relationship has not changed. The US has been over 25% of the world's GDP for nearly 10 years, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future."
You can hear more from this brilliant, iconoclastic economist by visiting his website, http://www.ecotrends.org.
