2024 is close at hand, a Presidential election is underway, and those contests, as we've seen time and again, can turn sharply on the economy. It's generally considered (by those of us aging Boomers who remember it) that the stagflation of the late '70s cost Jimmy Carter his 1980 re-election, and Joe Biden (assuming he's the candidate, which remains to be seen) may well see his re-election effort turn on that same pivot. In 1992, Bill Clinton ran on the message, "It's the economy, stupid," and that was a message that worked. The GOP may find themselves ideally suited to run on a similar message in 2024 if they are savvy enough to pick up on it (assuming facts are not in evidence).
Economist, analyst, and stormy petrel Harry Dent has bad news for Joe Biden and his Democrat allies; he predicts a major economic crisis beginning in early 2024.
"Since 2009, this has been 100% artificial, unprecedented money printing and deficits; $27 trillion over 15 years, to be exact. This is off the charts, 100% artificial, which means we're in a dangerous state," Harry Dent told Fox News Digital. "I think 2024 is going to be the biggest single crash year we'll see in our lifetimes."
"I'm the guy that's praying for a crash while everybody else is not. We need to get back down to normal, and we need to send a message to central banks," he continued. "This should be a lesson I don't think we'll ever revisit. I don't think we'll ever see a bubble for any of our lifetimes again."
Getting "back down to normal" when the federal government has run up a debt of $33 trillion will not be easy or painless. The price of a new house or a new car is now out of reach for much of the American middle class, thanks to years of feckless economic policies on which the Biden administration has doubled down at every turn. And it's not just the federal government that has been spending like drunken sailors — an unfair comparison, I know, as drunken sailors are spending their own money.
There are three ways out of this debt crisis. We can grow our way out of it, which, at this point, seems unlikely; things have just gone too far. We can inflate our way out of it, but that would yield Weimar-Republic-era results. And finally, we can simply repudiate the debt, which would set off the major crisis that Harry Dent is warning us about.
Still, a major recession — or even a depression, which Harry Dent does not rule out — could be a (yes, I know) reset button for the economy.
"Depressions are different from recessions. They go much deeper, and they end up in deflation," he further explained. "It's going to bring down a lot of consumer price inflation, and especially housing… When this asset bubble bursts and the price of everything, especially housing, comes back down to reality, imagine, not only can you buy the house you want at half-off... you can buy twice as nice a house here for the same mortgage you were going to get before. How's that for a Christmas present?"
The effects on the housing market would be welcome; I've written before about our four daughters, how the older two were able to buy homes because they live in a small eastern Iowa town where real estate prices are low; the younger two, however, live in a suburb of Denver and have lost all hope of being able to buy a home in the near future. There are millions like them, Millennials who are losing confidence in our political class and losing hope of achieving the American Dream. But what costs will there be to see this housing bubble burst? What other effects might we see in a major economic crisis?
A depression may be like a summer thunderstorm. When I was a kid back in northeast Iowa, late July and early August would often bring us those dreadfully hot, muggy days, where it was impossible to move about without breaking into a sweat; if you went into a cornfield, you could actually hear the corn creaking and popping as it grew, the air was so thick and still. Then a summer thunderstorm would come, and for a few hours, there would be thunder and lightning, wind and rain, the cold downpour lashing the corn, the grass, the trees, and turning the rivers and creeks silver with raindrop splashes. Then it would pass, and the heat and humidity would be broken, ushering in a few cool, comfortable days.
There's a problem with that as a metaphor; in a really big thunderstorm, it's entirely possible that you might get hit by lightning or just plain be flooded out. I remember very well the flood of 1977, a thousand-year flood when we spent weeks clearing away a pile of dead trees that had washed up against the enormous stone chimney on the upstream side of our house. A lot of damage was done to a lot of people in that flood — and a year later, the creek was renewed, with the silt washed away and the clean gravel exposed, ideal for brooding trout to make their redds.
Yes, another economic depression may be like that.
Being something of a stormy petrel myself, I've been saying for some time that we are in the final stage of this cycle:
- Hard times make tough people.
- Tough people make good times.
- Good times make weak people.
- Weak people make hard times. (<--- You are here)
Our current economic mess is due in large part to this. We have in Washington and our several state capitals a breed of pols who auction votes by promising the electorate an ever-more-generous cornucopia of Free Stuff, paid for by a constant debasing of our fiat currency; that fiat currency that is only worth anything because the government says it is, and for only as long as people believe that the government will stand behind it. A major economic crisis may damage, if not eliminate, that faith.
An economic collapse may well be the culmination of a Fourth Turning, the "crisis," which will result in major political, societal, and economic changes — in other words, moving us to the hard times that will make tough people. Hopefully, then, those new tough people will go on to make good times. But that won't happen unless the current path changes dramatically; government spending must be reined in, politicians must be brought in check, economic policies must once more favor enterprise and growth, and the currency must once more mean something tangible.
As always, Stein's Law applies. What can't continue, won't. The fiscal trajectory we're on can't continue. And it won't. One way or another, it won't.