Dow 20,000 is already old news- the Dow Jones’ seemingly stratospheric milestone in January would cause panic, if reached again in April (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
What started out as an echo bubble, roughly eight years ago, has long since outgrown the bubble it was echoing. How much it has outgrown the previous one remains to be seen, but there is no question- ZERO- that we have been witnessing economic madness for some time now. And, with respect to Commentary Magazine’s claim that, “there is no the-sky’s-the-limit attitude today on the Street,” there are a heck of a lot more of those, than claims that we may be overdoing juuuuust a little bit, let alone ones of impending economic doom. (There are a few exceptions, though.)
In the interest of full disclosure, I can no longer keep track of how many times I’ve been wrong about seeing The Top, as I have been proven wrong REPEATEDLY. All I can do, from this point forward, is create markers for A Top, which is to say that I’ll track new, distinct levels of crazy, whenever they appear. One of these days, A Top will be shown to be The Top, but that won’t be known until after the fact, as these things only become etched-in-stone in hindsight.
With that in mind, here is the first “A Top” to be documented on this site- on March 29th, 2017, Amazon.com reached another record high, with Barclays, a company that wouldn’t even exist if not for the bailout of ’08, declaring that it’s only a matter of time before Amazon becomes a $1 trillion company. (The money quote, pardon the pun- “it’s just a question of when, not if, in our view“.) I guess you’d have to have a high opinion of a company that could waste $500 million on another company that goes bust within five years, then quickly shrug it off, like someone who left a few quarters at the laundromat. After all, this is a company that is now worth more than 700% (!!!) of its Dot.com high, a level assumed not long after as ridiculous and unsustainable. In fact, the level was seen as so ridiculous after the 95% collapse from its high, it nearly wrecked Henry Blodget’s career, once his lofty predictions went kaput. Of course, that could NEVER happen now, because (all together now)…
THIS TIME, IT’S DIFFERENT!
And indeed, it is, according to San Francisco Fed President John Williams, who cited Goldilocks, to explain what was happening right now with our economy. You read that right, dear reader- in justifying what has been happening with our economy, an elite professional in the financial community cited a fairly tale! What an accidentally perfect metaphor, for what we are witnessing right now. This claim is all the more absurd, considering how the Goldilocks analogy was used- and then ridiculed- during the Y2K boom and bust. But don’t worry about that now, because…
THIS TIME, IT’S DIFFERENT!
And hey, remember when Alan Greenspan justified his lack of foresight about the Y2K bubble, because he claimed that bubbles can’t be seen in advance? Well, guess what- it turns out that not only CAN we see bubbles in advance, but we know for sure that we’re NOT in one now! We know this, because someone from Harvard told us this– and people from Harvard are really smart! After all, Ben Bernanke went to Harvard, and…hmm, well maybe that’s not the best example here. But I’m sure we don’t have to worry much about that now, because…
WELL, YOU GET THE IDEA!
Anyway, happy investing.
justbecauselive 