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Paul B. Farrell
May 31, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EDT
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) "” The 30-year Reaganomics Revolution will be over soon. Like the Roaring Twenties, ending in the game changing crash. Though more than 80 years apart, they share a common theme song of irrational exuberance: "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles."
Many bubbles, now merging like tornadoes, in a perfect storm, a megabubble itching to blow, signaling the end of the ego-centered Reaganomics Revolution, which must, unfortunately, also take down America's markets, economy and monetary system.
Every year when Wall Street returns to work after the Memorial Day weekend, there's talk of a Summer Rally. Mark Hulbert and Laura Mandaro discuss seasonal market trends and the risks of betting on one season over another.
Yes, folks, that one song captures the collective mind-set of both the Roaring Twenties and the Reaganomics Revolution: "Forever blowing bubbles. Pretty bubbles in the air. Dreaming dreams. Scheming schemes. Building castles in the sky. Fortune's always hiding. I've looked everywhere. Forever blowing bubbles. They fly so high, nearly reach the sky. Then like my dreams they fade and die."
Then "¦ like our dreams "¦ they fade "¦ and die. Nearly a century ago the bubbles popped in the Crash of 1929. Then the bubbly went flat during the long Great Depression. It repeats with the Reaganomics Revolution's endless "pretty bubbles." For a generation we have watched the damage created by a selfish ideology: The S&L disaster. Dot-com crash. Wars. Subprime meltdown. Great Recession. And, yes, there's more to come, more "pretty bubbles." You'll see below.
Irrational exuberance blinds us. On March 20, 2000, as dot-com exuberance raged, our column began: "Next Crash, You Won't Hear It Coming." Then came a 30-month recession. We went on reporting 20 advance warnings of the 2008 meltdown. Nobody listened. Till it was too late. Till a conflicted Treasury Secretary, myopic Fed Chairman and clueless Congress all panicked, making matters worse, setting up a new meltdown, dead ahead.
Today our collective brain has been consumed by a greed-is-good virus. We have lost our moral compass. The values of the American Revolution of 1776 are dead. The Reaganomics Revolution has replaced those values with the unregulated free market with an "every man for himself, get rich quick" ideology that's destroying America from within:
In the Bush years some cocky conservatives predicted a "permanent majority" lasting "for years, maybe decades." The hubris gods had other plans. Then after Obama's election, one cocky liberal wrote "40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation." Wrong again. Both parties will lose in the final flame-out of the Reaganomics Revolution.
Yes, so many "pretty bubbles" merging. And still, the pundits and press love the bull, arguing that no one bubble is a game-ender. Even after a generation of increasingly bigger, more frequent economic disasters drain our fiscal and monetary resources, raising our debt to unsustainable levels, destroying our trust in democracy, it's now obvious that America many "pretty bubbles" are making us vulnerable, inviting trouble.
Get it? Today any one "pretty bubble" can trigger a flash point, ignite a chain reaction, an economic nuclear bomb exploding the American Dream. Here are America's most toxic bubbles, warnings of the coming crash "¦ the one we refuse to hear:
Bad sign: Pundits are desperately trying to dismiss the LinkedIn IPO, arguing it's not another 1999 sock-puppet crash signal. They're wrong. "LinkedIn inspires others" to "take serious step toward IPOs," warns USA Today's Matt Kranz. Another even bigger warning comes in an Economist cover story, "The New Tech Bubble: Irrational exuberance has returned to the Internet world. Investors should beware."
The Economist has a great track record. It predicted the dot-com crash in advance. Years before the subprime meltdown, in a June 2005 cover story, it wrote: "The worldwide rise in house prices is the biggest bubble in history. "¦ Rising property prices helped to prop up the world economy after the stock market bubble burst in 2000." Values increased 75% worldwide in 5 years. "Never before have real house prices risen so fast, for so long, in so many countries "¦ the biggest bubble in history." America ignored it. Warning, another huge tech bubble is brewing.
Whether it's the BP Gulf spill, four-buck gas, oil-driven inflation, "peak oil" warnings, domestic political pressure to drill baby drill, that requiem to "The Oil Age" in Foreign Policy, or the oil giants' ads bragging about what good guys they are, a big bubble is blowing.
"R.I.P. Reaganomics Revolution: 1981-2011 http://on.mktw.net/kKjyyQ" 12:18 a.m. EDT, May 31, 2011 from MKTWFarrell
"Reagan insider: GOP destroyed U.S. economy, Part 2 http://on.mktw.net/mpNsFB" 11:31 p.m. EDT, May 23, 2011 from MKTWFarrell
"15 ways both bulls and bears can stay happy http://on.mktw.net/mI5unM" 11:48 p.m. EDT, May 16, 2011 from MKTWFarrell
"Bill Gross: The leader Treasury, Fed needs http://on.mktw.net/mGBTBJ" 11:42 p.m. EDT, May 9, 2011 from MKTWFarrell
Paul Farrell writes the column on behavioral economics. He's the author of nine books on personal finance, economics and psychology, including "The Millionaire Code," "The Winning Portfolio," "The Lazy Person's Guide to Investing." Farrell was an investment banker with Morgan Stanley; executive vice president of the Financial News Network; executive vice president of Mercury Entertainment Corp; and associate editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. He has a Juris Doctor and a Doctorate in Psychology.
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