This is getting interesting again.

If it is just "volatility," as Wall Street's shills in the press maintain, it will probably pass soon. Everything will be okay. Back to routine imbecility before the end of the month.

But if these whipsaw movements are heralding a bear market, US stock prices could be cut in half … or more.

And they may not recover for 10 to 20 years. (Catch up on the details of our bear market forecast here.)

Bull or bear?

Which is it? Bull or bear?

No one knows, of course. But it looks to us as though the whole shebang is getting ready to collapse.

So far, the correction has trimmed $12.5 trillion off the value of global stock markets. There are a few reasons for stocks to go back up … and many reasons why they might want to go down further.

The 2008 global financial crisis was centered on mortgage debt. There was too much of it that couldn't be repaid. When the value of the collateral — homes — headed down, the bubble popped.