global recession

Are economists the new astrologers?

A controversial article has been circulating through the financial news for the past year or so that equates economists with astrologers because, its author argues, both are pseudosciences.  Ironically, the argument given is that economists were not able to predict the 2008 economic crash:

The failure of the field to predict the 2008 crisis has … been well-documented. In 2003, for example, only five years before the Great Recession, the Nobel Laureate Robert E Lucas Jr told the American Economic Association that ‘macroeconomics […] has succeeded: its central problem of depression prevention has been solved’.

The irony is that astrologers DID predict the 2008 crisis, and were not surprised when it occurred.  Unfortunately though, while astrology can reveal the general climate of what the future may bring, there is no way to predict specific events either in our personal lives or in a global economy. Since the 2008 crisis both economists AND astrologers have predicted a correction, or a crash – yet the global economic condition continues to expand.

I like this quote from Paul Krugman in the article cited above:

‘As I see it,’ he wrote, ‘the economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth.’ Krugman named economists’ ‘desire… to show off their mathematical prowess’ as the ‘central cause of the profession’s failure’.

Math is an abstraction, but can it be used to predict human behavior?  I think astrologers often make the same mistake.  We have these marvelous symbols, “beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics,”  and now an abundance of ancient techniques to predict the future.  And yes, a few times those techniques for prediction have succeeded – but so will flipping a coin 50% of the time.

When astrology […]

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By |2018-09-03T09:41:10-04:00September 3rd, 2018|Money and markets, Predictions|0 Comments

An astrological look at the US economy

financial astrologyA dear friend of mine, who shall remain nameless but I’m sure she’s not alone, been frightened by the dire predictions of another astrologer friend of hers who has predicted that the US economy will collapse in 2014 and 2015.  Contrarian that I am, I have a different view.

Yesterday’s post looked back at 2010 to see how we got to the place where we currently find ourselves.  Economists say now that we entered the global recession in December 2007 which was just before Pluto entered Capricorn in January 2008, and that the global recession actually ended in June of 2009.  The summer of 2009 may have been the trough, but it took several years to pull our way out of the recession and growth is only now just beginning to occur.

Pluto’s entry into Capricorn created the contraction that ended the previous riot of expansion that occurred when Pluto moved through Sagittarius, and once Uranus began aspecting Pluto in 2011 the world began to recover of the shock of the global collapse and begin the process of looking with new eyes (Uranus) towards rebuilding and transformation (Pluto).  By the time the square between Uranus and Pluto began in 2012, the economy was well on its way to recovery.

During this time the US has been particularly hard-hit.  Partly this is because with Sagittarius rising in the Sibley chart that is commonly used for the US, Americans tend to be overly optimistic in general, and consequently were very susceptible to the absolute faith (another hallmark of Sagittarius) that was required for the giant balloon that was the pre-2008 economy.  (Read more about America’s love of money in my earlier post here.)

I’m not sure why my friend’s financial […]

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By |2014-04-04T06:12:58-04:00April 4th, 2014|Money and markets|2 Comments

From 2010: When will the Global Recession be over?

I found this article in my drafts folder – for some reason I never published it.  I found it interesting and perhaps you will too.  

We predicted the coming of the recession, can we also predict when it will be behind us?

I began predicting a decline in the financial markets when Jupiter (expansion) made a square to Saturn (restriction and the imposition of limitations) back in late 2005 and 2006.  At that time I, like other astrologers, began recommending that people get out of the stock market, assuming that Saturn would begin to set limits on the ever-expanding market prices.  Still, the stock market remained relatively strong and continued to expand with Jupiter in Scorpio, the sign of investment and other people’s money.  In January 2007 I admitted that I had been wrong:

I feel that the stock market remained strong because of the determined optimism of Jupiter’s passage through Scorpio, which rules other people’s money and therefore the stock market, as well as the continued travel of Pluto through Sagittarius and its irrational exuberance. The astrological indicators are relatively benign for 2007. Except for the ongoing opposition of Saturn and Neptune which could disappoint (Saturn) some deluded (Neptune) investors who wear rose colored glasses and the square between Jupiter (expansion) and Uranus (sudden change) which may bring about sudden changes of fortune for all kinds of people, I don’t see anything that will bring about a recession.

However, it’s clear now that the seeds were sown during 2006 for the slowdown of the economy that hit us in 2008.  Home prices peaked that year, as did the frenzy of subprime mortgages.  However, the strength of the “irrational exuberance” as I called it of Pluto’s travel through Sagittarius made it […]

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By |2009-03-02T07:05:48-05:00March 2nd, 2009|Money and markets, Planetary cycles|Comments Off on From 2010: When will the Global Recession be over?

Who is Timothy Geithner?

Timothy GeithnerTimothy Geithner is the man that Barack Obama has entrusted with the challenging task of rescuing our economy from a global recession that astrologers have been expecting for many years.  I have some doubts as to how much rescuing can actually be done until the diseased underlying system is rebuilt, but I am very curious to know more about Mr. Geithner.

Very little is known about Mr. Geithner, but there is no doubt that he has been a part of the financial establishment that is now in so much distress.  He began his career with Kissinger and Associates, and then worked in the International Affairs division of the US Treasury.  He was a Senior Fellow for the Council of Foreign Relations, and most recently was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Geithner’s astrological chart (born 8/18/1961, no known birthtime) shows an interesting combination of the bold and the cautious.  Like Obama, he has the Sun in cheerful and energetic Leo, and it conjuncts Uranus almost exactly revealing an iconoclastic streak and an inventive approach to life.  Mercury is present too, making this a triple Leo conjunction with Uranus at its center. The Sun/Mercury conjunction typically denotes an extremely bright individual, and Uranus tends to add a component of brilliance that is often found in the charts of inventors and great thinkers such as Marcel Proust who has been called the greatest novelist of the 20th century.

It’s interesting that he grew up abroad in Zimbabwe, India and Japan which likely informed his world view, which judging from his chart would embrace a wide variety of beliefs and ideas.

Saturn in Geithner’s chart is retrograde AND in Capricorn, the sign ruled by Saturn, all of which show that Saturn is very pronounced in […]

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By |2009-01-28T20:35:21-05:00January 28th, 2009|Politics|Comments Off on Who is Timothy Geithner?