[Pops]

Here is a chance to channel your inner Nostradamus, click a number and report out your reasoning.

I'm at about a 3.4 - call it 3 if light tight decline happens later, 4 if sooner.


Reason #1 is real estate in the US has been on a 7 year cycle since WWII and checking the calendar I see it's been 7 years since the last top.

#2 China

#3 This more or less

Actually this puts me in a strange spot - for me at least. If the farm sale closes I'll have what for me is a boat load of cash.

[Tanada]

I called for big correction because I still see LTO as a hyped up bubble and I think with the recent fall in WTI prices it is liable to burst. How far reaching the popping will be remains to be seen, but we as a country have double the national debt we had before the 2008 bubble popped.

[dolanbaker]

I call a slight correction, lower oil prices will soften the blow.
If the Irish housing market is anything to go by, it's already happening.
House prices crashed by an average of 50% between 2008 and 2012, in many areas have risen by about 20-30% since then. They are now static and asking prices are falling again due to a tightening of the credit rules for mortgages.

[GHung]

I put crash (#4), though I'm closer to a 3.5 in part because my doom-o-meter says that's where it should be. This, despite that things are going pretty well on the home front.

I'm seeing a lot of distrust in things in general; locally and on virtually all of the MSM online boards. The EU banking stress tests, on the surface, didn't go so bad, until one realizes how low the bar was set. CNN/Money's "Fear and Greed Index" has been in the 'fear/extreme-fear' zone more than I can remember, and comments there have been quite gloomy.

Volatility in the markets is up; usually a sign of an impending sell-off. Locally, the real estate bubble has been partially re-inflated but it doesn't seem to be holding despite best efforts; lots of properties for sale; few buyers at/near asking prices, and banks who've been sitting on forclosures are starting to dump again. Things were going quite well here in 2007 and I became known as something of a Chicken Little around then; just a sense that the bubble couldn't hold. Same sense now, except I think the central banks, especially the Fed, have shot their wad. The public and the economy simply won't tolerate the level of bailouts we've seen recently, so whatever correction we see next time will be an 'honest one', challenging too many claims on too few assets, calling in bets and counter-bets. I expect we'll find out sometime after the mid-term elections in the US.

WTI just dropped below $80 as I type.

[careinke]

I went with 3, but 4 is certainly lurking.

Just before the 2008 correction I could not drive the 13 miles off of our key without being able to visually seeing a "Home for sale" sign from the drivers seat. Now I am seeing the same thing again. There is not a spot on the Key Pen highway where you cannot see a for sale sign.

Plus butter is up to $4.00 a pound! How do people eat?

On the plus side gas is down. Who would of thought I would be giddy over $3 gas? As a kid I paid a quarter for a gallon of gas, and I was making a $17 an hour in 2014 dollars.

[Subjectivist]

Doom crash on the horizon. If this winter is like last a lot of people around here are going to be hurting something fierce, and it makes myself and others hesitant to spend money on Christmas.

[Plantagenet]

We never fully recovered from the Great Recession.

The EU is going in for a triple dip-----even Germany is going into recession. Here in the US we hear a lot of "happy talk" from the Obama administration and the MSM about how great our economy is, but wages aren't growing, family assets are shrinking, most of the jobs are part-time and low wage, the much-ballyhooed falling unemployment rate is mainly due to workers being shifted into other categories so they aren't counted anymore (even though they are still unemployed), and the majority of US GDP growth can be traced back to money printing at the FED and huge deficit spending by the Obama administration---which has exploded the federal deficit to the point that we now have to pay 250 BILLION off the top from from the federal budget each year to service our giant debt---crippling US growth forever.

I didn't vote in the poll because the correct answer isn't an option---we still haven't fully recovered from the Great Recession of 2008-9.

[Pops]

To clarify, we'll use this definition for purposes of the poll:

re·ces·sion
rəˈseSH(ə)n/
noun
1.
a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters.

[Subjectivist]

To clarify, we'll use this definition for purposes of the poll:

re·ces·sion
rəˈseSH(ə)n/
noun
1.
a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters.

Just out of curiousity, what kind of economy do you consider the current one to be Pops? By official numbers we might not have had two consequtive quarters in decline but if growth is weak and alternates with declines every few months it sure doesn't feel like a healthy economy.

[GHung]

pstarr: "--The 'stock market' is a casino, and the house wins. The 500 largest industrial corporations (the DJI?) control 25 percent of the world's economic output (but employ only one twentieth of one percent of the world's population). The hoi-ploi want a piece of the action. The don't get it."

... and the players are gambling with cheap credit; just one of the things plugged into my doom-o-meter:


http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dsho ... he-SPX.php

Anyone see a pattern here? I suggest anyone who believes we're not back in doomer territory go to the link and look at the other graphs.

[Timo]

I went for 3, but instead of a slight correction, it will be a doosey. It will be another 2008, but not everyone will survive this time, and fewer banks will be bailed out, leading to a bigger, more brutal correction. However, the systems of finance and the global economy will continue because no one will come right out and admit that BAU is finished, forever! If anthing, the globalisation of our economy will deepen, in spite of the growing number of international conflicts. The coming correction will mean that no one country can afford to go it alone, thus increasing everyone's dependency on each other. This increased dependency, however, will wreak havoc within internal politics, and pols will be calling for more wars and more sanctions and more freedoms to break the laws themselves. The depletion of natural resources are already making all nations more dependent on each other. The depletion of actual money will bring out the S&M in every one of our world's leaders. Things will not be pretty, but i'll stop just short of predicting an actual WWIII. That's already happening, but is being fought in isolated areas, mostly under false pretenses.

[Timo]

I'll go one further and predict this will all happen on Wednesday, not Tuesday.

[MD]

Oil prices are down. That means we are IN a recession.

POD

[BobInget]

Being one of those investors who live dangerously.. (major, continuous margin debt) I've managed to
pull through several stock market 'corrections'. As for oil prices on the skids, I've seen a major deficit
in the portfolio. My 'mantra'; "Recon we won't be needing oil, any longer".
Obviously, black humor goes only so far. The other day I called the low for oil around $80 and change.
Oh, I chose #3 because major corrections come along regularly. Corrections were event driven.
Today, in a 24/7 Twitter/Facebook cycle when a five year old comes down with a fever, markets go cold.

Oil prices plummeted because those doing manipulation have more then immediate profit in mind.
If you believe China's seven percent growth, (compared with 2% USA) is a bad sign, review arithmetic.
One trick that most always works; check copper prices. Oil and copper normally move in tandem.
Because some folks buy and sell oil related shares on price movements alone, if you believe, as I do this
stock market volatility we are experiencing is caused by a wicked princess, watch copper.

If you believe in magic of any sort, you haven't the stomach for margin investments.

If you believe as do I, we, the Western nations are in 'The Long Oil War'..
If you believe, as I do, global warming, not Islamic Extremism, should be our major concern.
Then, vote for #3.

[Newfie]

Voted 3. The Republicans have nothing to gain by the economy doing well. Not them alone, but one additional factor.

I have been fearful of a 4+ drop in 16 since the last election. It would likely put a straight red government in place, or , if bad enough, even a deep red or totalitarian government.

[dolanbaker]

Oil prices are down. That means we are IN a recession.

POD

Indeed we are, the problem with trying to compare with previous recessions is the fact that after QE,QE2 etc, the old rules and charts based on the state of the economy using these old rules are skewed to such an extent that I don't think that they can be relied on to predict the next crash.

Many "impossible" things were done to save the banksters arses, I'm certain that they have them well covered this time.

[Pops]

Just out of curiousity, what kind of economy do you consider the current one to be Pops? By official numbers we might not have had two consequtive quarters in decline but if growth is weak and alternates with declines every few months it sure doesn't feel like a healthy economy.

Just because the economy is weak doesn't meant it can't get worse, LOL.

My knee-jerk is the reflating of the stock market and billions pumped in with the frack-water are covering underlying deflation in the US and the continuing sucking sound from Trickle Up and tinkle down.

And the US is the bright spot.

[dinopello]

Not sure what response I should indicate but what I think will happen is the economy will muddle along until Obama is out of office. The falling energy prices might stave off a more broad based economic decline but I wouldn't rule that out in 2015. Starting in 2017 there will be an explosion of economic activity. Government spending will go up as will corporate investment. Monetary policy will tighten at that point. That is all.