Revisiting the Future

08-31-2012 • http://lewrockwell.com, by Jeff Thomas

At that time, in a reverse of the old adage, "It's always darkest before the dawn," a small number of people were putting a wet blanket on this thinking, with the prediction that, as history shows, "Bull markets do not end with a whimper, but with an upside spike," or, in simpler words, "It's always brightest before the crash."

As one of the latter group, it's safe to say that, at that time, almost no one was listening to us.

My own predictions had been that, as the economic decline progressed, there would be several major stages of decline. But, in addition, there would be three major stages of denial by the great majority of people, and it is that denial that is the subject of this article.

1. The Initial Crashes

Although the initial crashes that occurred in 2007/2008 were, by far, the easiest aspects of the Great Unravelling to predict, their likelihood was, predictably, rejected by the greatest number of people. The reason for this is that the crashes represented a change of direction – from positive to negative.