Doomed to Repeat History?
William O’Neil, in his excellent book “How to Make Money in Stocks”, has a chapter on the media, news, and market psychology. In this section he has taken the charts of the Dow Industrials from 1921 through 1942, and overlayed on this a chart of the NASDAQ Composite from February 1992 through March 2009, and indexed the data so that the charts both start at 100:
What is remarkable about this chart is that the two time periods are almost exact duplicates. O’Neil used the NASDAQ for comparison with the 1929 era as it trades more volume now than the NYSE and represents more entrepreneurial companies. The reason history repeats in this amazing manner is that the markets are made up of millions of people acting almost 100% on human emotions.
You can see two important history lessons from just looking at the above chart:
1. This isn’t 1929 right now in October, 2009 – its Oct 1939.
2. The market (according to history) is not going to be very exciting for a long time – denoting a very sluggish economic recovery that may last years.
So if history really does repeat itself, then what was happening in 1939? Hitler kept saying he was only interested in peace. By 1938, Britain and France negotiated with Hitler and tried to appease him by making concessions. Britain thought they had a peace agreement with Hitler. Crowds cheered. But in Parliament, Churchill said “We’ve suffered a defeat”. No one believed Churchill. In 1939, World War II began and within just two weeks, Germany rolled right through France.
Today, Iran is a sponsor of terrorist organizations. It will have nuclear weapons very soon, and already has the missiles to deliver nuclear warheads. Even though, just like Hitler, it keeps saying it only wants peace.
We should never underestimate partisan blindness in Washington or in the mainstream media where, “If the Bush Administration did it, it must be wrong”. The Bush Administration kept us safe from additional attacks for over seven years. Too many people refuse to acknowledge that such benefits have costs, even if that means having no more secrecy when making international phone calls, being delayed at airports, and so on.
There are a growing number of threats that can destroy us. The Roman Empire lasted a lot longer than the United States, yet it too was destroyed. Millions of lives were blighted for centuries after, because the barbarians who destroyed Rome, much like the fanatic Islamic fundamentalists of Iran, Al-Quaida and the Taliban, were incapable of replacing it with anything at all comparable.
Once suicidal fanatics have nuclear bombs, that is the point of no return. Israel completely understands this. Unfortunately, the Liberal President and Congress now in office do not. in The Media Elite, Rothman and Richter interviewed 240 top journalists and staffers at the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and the news departments of four major TV networks. 85% of these top journalists were found to be Liberal and voted Democratic in all of the last major elections.
Emmy Award winner Bernard Goldberg spent almost 30 years with CBS News. His book Bias shows in detail how network television has provided one-sided news with little balance or fairness. This kind of bias in the media jeopardizes freedom. It completely misrepresents the de facto equality of left vs right in the general population. Some of my Liberal friends mock FOX News as being “right wing”. The fact is, FOX is closer to the center than all the other networks. They’re all so far left, it makes FOX “look like” it’s right wing. But frankly, I’m not a fan of any network news organization and that includes FOX News.
There are no concessions we can make that will buy off these hatred-filled terrorists. Obama’s apologetic, self-humiliating policy of appeasement does not work. What these maniacs want is our being brought down in humiliation. This kind of hatred is not familiar to most Americans but what happened on 9/11 should give us a clue – and a very clear warning. Iran and North Korea, along with various terrorist groups, represent a clear and present danger to world peace and stability that hasn’t been seen since Nazi Germany 70 years ago. If we do not defeat them we will suffer dire consequences, and it will only be because we cannot learn the lessons of history and do not realize how absolutely grave the threat really is.
I sure hope President Obama is not remembered in history for being the guy who allowed Iran and North Korea to threaten and blackmail the free world with weapons of mass destruction; who allowed the Taliban and Al Queda to be emboldened by our pitiful weakness in Afghanistan. But currently, things aren’t looking very promising. The next election is simply too far away for me.
Read the following link, I found the author's analysis on Iran very interesting. The just of it is there will be war, and there is a possibility that Israel will use nuclear weapons to take out hardened deeply buried Iranian nuclear sites. Sounds way over the top, till you read the blog post.
ReplyDeletebit.ly/1V678 put the http infront.
We may be about to live in a whole new world in a few weeks from now.
There is a diplomatic adage: "keep your mouth shut and your options open" that would appear to apply here. Are you really suggesting that Obama should declare war on Iran? We haven't got enough troops on the ground in the 'Stan to win the war against the Taliban yet! To paraphrase another quote (from 90's sci-fi classic B5): "Only a fool fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the kingdom of fools fights a war on four fronts."
ReplyDeleteAhmadinejad needs to be put down for sure, but right now there's ways we can do that without declaring open war. Attacking the supply lines that Iran uses to supply insurgents in Iraq (or the ones from Egypt used to supply Hamas) will serve the dual purpose of saving lives and pissing off the bad guys. We can't afford to be the ones that start another war as it limits the offensive action we can take.
What we really need is more troops on the ground in the wars we haven't won yet and (certainly for us Brits) better bloody equipment!!!
Although, as the old joke goes: "How far will Israel go to stop Iran getting nuclear capability? About 870 miles".
@Ben,
ReplyDeleteTaking out nuke facilities to stop a threat could hardly be called "war".
1) What country did Iran invade so you equate it with Nazi Germany?
ReplyDelete2) Why should US taxpayers pay for policing other part of the word?
@Dennis,
ReplyDeleteWWII could have been prevented if the allies and Russia had stopped Hitler before he got a chance to do any "invading". All the signs were there and they were unmistakeable.
Peter,
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of signs of inevitable aggression do you see now in Iran?
A different Ben E.
ReplyDeletePeter I agree with your blog 100%. I think the prudent action is to prepare for the worst, in other words become as self-sufficient as possible. It is clear to me that the 1938 appeasement will be in the form of sanctions this time and will be no more effective than appeasement. Israel will act soon and if they are not successful, the world will have to get by with only 75% of the current oil supply. That Dennis Gorelik is the reason the U.S. taxpayer must pay to police the world, to keep the oil flowing.
Being from Egypt, it really amazes me how many people in the west seem so naive about the danger of a fanatic regime with nukes. These people will stop at nothing to bring apocalypse. Unlike soviets for example, the west could implement a policy of MAD (mutually assured destruction ) to deter them from using nukes. These people couldn't care less about destroying their own people if this will achieve their personal goals.
ReplyDeleteLet me ask this: do you think Saddam Hussein would have hesitated to sacrifice 10 millions of his own people to remain in power?
In all fairness to the citizens of Iran, they have done a good job at putting their money where their mouth is of late when it comes to exercising their democratic rights - the same couldn't be said of Nazi Germany (or the UK at the moment). What has been sadly lacking is international condemnation of their 'internal security' policy - that would have taken the wind out of Ahmadinejad's sails.
ReplyDeleteIraq (Saddam) had bloody history on its hands, such as invasion into Kuwait.
ReplyDeleteWho did Iran invade?
@Dennis, this is really starting to look like trolling. if that's your criteria, you have made your point.
ReplyDelete"Trolling"?
ReplyDelete"Thank you for helping me identify my irrational hatred toward Iran" would be more appropriate...
Unless I'm missing something and you have rock solid reasons to spend US taxpayers money on yet another war.
In that case I would be grateful to see these reasons.
BTW, this discussion is not only about Iran. It's also about our ability to reason with each other.
This is the other Ben E, I will use BES to eliminate confusion.
ReplyDelete@Dennis
Please consider that you may have missed Peter's point: "Doomed to Repeat History?". Using your criteria that Iran must invade (or in this case wipe from the face of the earth) before action is taken, history would indeed be repeated.
@BES -- do you see any reliable signs that Iran would attack the US or United States' allies?
ReplyDeleteIf so -- what are these signs?
@Dennis, The elected leader of Iran has stated that the state of Israel should be wiped from the face of the earth on several occasions. Iran supports terrorists activities against Israel. You could raise the point that the elected leader has no real power in Iran, that the religious leaders have the real power. But do you really think the elected leader would make those comments without the religious leaders approval? And Israel is a U.S. ally.
ReplyDeleteIf a country was stating that the U.S. should be wiped from the face of the earth and continued to fire rockets daily into the USA, do you think we should set back and wait for an invasion or nuclear attack before acting?
Hi Mr. Bromberg,
ReplyDeletelike you I have dealt with market analysis for decades and I am also a C# programmer. I stumbled into your blog from the yahoo finance C# project that you thankfully shared. This was the first article I read, and I was quiet disappointed. The number one lesson I learned from philosophy and from the markets is a lesson in aporia. In your blog article you just seem too sure about things. The true patterns of repeating history - in markets and (I guess) in politics, or let's generalize and say "in human behavior" are not determined until after they actually occurred.
That said, you might be sadly right. But you are talking about very severe consequences here, read the body count Iraq, watch videos of misguided missiles hitting family hideout, watch children burn. You don’t even want to think about this unless you absolutely have to. How much better 1939 – 45 have been without appeasement (Stalin was in no way better than Hitler) is hard to tell. Germany had no good alternatives to war with all resources spend into military and fading perspectives. In this respect there are some parallels between the current USA and the 30ies Germany.
Regards
DC
@BES,
ReplyDelete1) Rhetoric of political leaders doesn't mean too much.
And if it does -- the US leaders are guilty in hate speech toward other countries.
However you don't suggest that the US must be bombed for that, do you?
2) Support of anti-government organizations is more serious problem, however the US did it multiple times in the past:
in Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Serbia and many other places.
So in comparison with the US Iran's guilt doesn't look serious enough.
I hope we both agree that US doesn't deserve being bombed.
So in order to be fair we should agree that Iran doesn't deserve being bombed either.
Well! I'm glad my post made you all think, anyway.
ReplyDelete@Peter, did our comments make you think?
ReplyDeleteHegel said “The history has been repeated twice, the first one is tragedy, and the second one is comedy”. As an Iranian who lived under the pressure of a dictatorial government that with no doubt supports terrorism I should say that Iran never could invade any country as it has not the military power to do so. There is no doubt, some countries get benefits from the Iran government, currently Russians, China and radical groups in Israel. Just has a look at the money that Russia gets from the regime in Iran to support it? 20 years ago, there was US and UK.
ReplyDelete36 years ago, when the king of Iran increases the price of oil, most of the west countries felt frustration about it, at that time, middle east was very calm, no war, nothing.
There are undeniable evidences that US and UK set up the dictatorial –Islamic government in Iran 30 years ago. A regime that first invade the US embassy in Iran in order to being enemy to the US, then continue a war with Iraq 7 years just in order to buy weapons from US indirectly 10 times higher than the price paid by the Shah to the US????
Just look at the current nuclear program of Iran. US never said that the problem is the regime of Iran; it always says the problem is its nuclear program. When a murder seeks for a knife, the problem is not the knife, the problem is the murder itself, by US thinks the problem is the knife??? Just look at the current demonstrations in Iran and look at the US reaction? US never likes to talk about human rights in Iran, to talk about a government that kills more than 2 millions of its people, it is not a matter? WHY? Every wise man uses all of its options against an enemy? But the question is, why US doesn’t use the human rights violations in Iran against its government? certainly, it helps to put down the regime?
Just read the archives of US media two years before and 2 years after the regime in Iran? During the revolution in Iran 30 years ago, the regime of the Shah, only 150 people have been killed. Just see the reflection of that in US media. After the revolution, Khomeini killed more than100000 people, and just look at the reflection of that in US media at that time? You will be surprised!!
All of the radical Islamic groups in Middle East have been supported by Israel? According to history, Hamas was made by Israel against the PLO (Palestinian Liberal Opposition), Taleban was made by US in Afghanestan against Russia 20 years ago, the regime of Iran too.