*** The company that Thomas Edison started cut its dividend for the first time in 71 years. Some analysts think GE, too, could default - thanks to the company's move into the financial sector.
*** Hotels are going into foreclosure too, says USA Today.
*** Dow Chemical is trading at a 24-year low.
*** And the "Great Red Hope" - the idea that China will pull the entire world economy out of a depression - is "pure fantasy," writes William Pesek.
China relies on exports. And the export business sucks. It will be lucky to get through this downturn without a revolution.
*** An Economist headline: "Are Investors Still too Optimistic?"
Our guess: yes. Most of the action on the stock markets is professional buying and selling. The amateurs seem to be largely sitting on the sidelines, waiting for a rebound to get back in.
They still haven't gotten the message. This isn't a recession. There won't be a quick recovery. And the bailout/stimulus plans won't work.
This is depression. It will take years to restructure the economy. And bailout/stimulus plans just slow down the process.
Looking back at the Dow...if you take the market peak of January 2000 as the long-term cyclical top...you might expect an eventual bottom 10- 20 years later...and then a new bull market that would return prices to their peak highs 10-20 after that. Between the high of '29 and the next major high in '66 was 37 years. Between the '66 high and the '00 high was 34 years.
So sit back. Relax. Most likely, we'll see stock prices much lower...for much longer. Look for a return to '00 highs in 2035.
Learn to make a correction your friend. Remember, this is a positive collapse, not negative growth. It is correcting the stupid 'growth' of the bubble years. What really grew during that period was consumer spending in the United States and Britain. And it grew far beyond the ability of Anglo-Americans to pay for it. Because they were spending too much, the whole world economy bent to sell them too much. The Chinese built too many factories. The shippers built too many vessels. The truckers bought too many trucks. The homebuilders put up too many hovels. The retailers expanded too much...the malls were overbuilt...etc. etc. etc.
Now, in this period of positive collapse, all that surplus capacity is being marked down to what it is really worth...liquidated...and restructured.
Give it time, dear reader. Let Mr. Market do his work.
Until tomorrow,
Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning Australia
P.S. to get The Daily Reckoning direct to your inbox sign up to our free e-mail newsletter or if you prefer to use RSS, subscribe to the Daily Reckoning RSS feed.
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About the Author
Best-selling investment author Bill Bonner is the founder and president of Agora Publishing, one of the world's most successful consumer newsletter companies. Owner of both Fleet Street Publications and MoneyWeek magazine in the UK, he is also author of the free daily e-mail The Daily Reckoning.
Comment by Tino Schlegel on 13 March 2009:
Not everyone looses money. The 'lost' money must be somewhere - maybe it was burnt or the promised money wasn't printed.
Anyway, the growth of the last years cannot get faster and faster.
Btw: Saw this nice documentary about the newly built ghost city in Spain last night. Some greedy people invested in this city to rent or sell those overpriced houses and no one wants to live there now. Well done investors. Will it get less greedy in the future? I don't think so!
Comment by Greg Atkinson on 14 March 2009:
Tino, it is a bit like that comment by Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street "Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred from one perception to another." Big winners will emerge from this crisis. At some point the timing will be just right for people to move in and snap up cheap assets.
BTW if Spain is doing it tough I wonder how those over-the-top developments are doing in Dubai?
Comment by Pete on 14 March 2009:
Tino: In response to "The 'lost' money must be somewhere"
Correct me if I am wrong please, but I believe money can be lost, especially due to fractional reserve banking. If the banks get afraid to lend to people, won't that generally cause the total money in fractional reserves to be less? Especially if they want to increase their ratio of deposits to lending, without relying on many new deposits - all they have to do is lend less.
(I realise that its not quite that simple for banks to get themselves out of this mess)
Basically what I am suggesting is that if money can be expanded upon using fractional reserve banking, then surely it can contract aswell.