Bear or Bull?

Bear or Bull?

I said I would try to write something this weekend about the economy. So here it is. I warned that it would be speculative, and it is.

I don't know anyone, astrologer or not, who is able to forecast what the economy or the stock market will be doing with any accuracy. Some are right part of the time, yet spectacularly wrong other times. Some may have a streak of being right for months or years, then fail abysmally.

There are just so many variables that nobody knows how to juggle all of them. Not just five or ten or twenty, but thousands. Not just the price of gasoline or the unemployment problem, but the crisis in Japan as a global economic event as well as the debt problems of Greece and other countries. And on and on. And in astrology there are also countless variables to consider, since we use (most of us) ten planets in their multiple combinations varying endlessly and never repeating from year to year. What was the problem in 1929 is not exactly what was the problem in 2008. Educated guesses remain educated guesses and not much more.

The astrologer Henry Weingarten, whom I knew in New York decades ago, publishes his online forecasts which you might look up. I am not sure you will find them reliable. A year or more ago he said that gold was not a good investment. As a matter of fact, since he said that it has risen dramatically. Another would-be prognosticator bites the gold dust.

Yet I consider Henry a serious astrologer and it is possible that if you studied his forecasts they would enhance your investment skills. Or, they might mislead you. That might depend more on your intuition and judgment than on his astrological prowess.

Last night I assiduously studied the latest pronouncements of financial experts on what is likely to happen in the near future for the American and world economies and, yes, the stock market. Most of them were quite bearish, the more extreme bears warning of another recession. Others tempered their pessimism with guarded optimism. Some think things will be better toward the end of this year; but one said that 2012 would be worse than this year.

Some call astrology a "pseudo-science" but I would say that economics might be deserving of the same designation.

It is fascinating to note that Saturday, the day I delved into these researches, Jupiter entered Taurus where it will be for approximately a year--Taurus the sign of the bull! Of course it would be foolish to say that because of that we will have a bull market, but I am guardedly optimistic. There will be ups and downs, as always, but I have said to individuals that I did not expect another recession or major "crash" or lasting downturn this calendar year. I will hold to that prediction, as bullish as I can get, and hope that events will bear me out.

The long-lasting opposition of Saturn and Uranus, odd as it may seem, appears to have something to do with the situation. Why these two would have a strong effect on the economy is an interesting question to which I could provide speculative answers. Rather, I will point out some solid facts.

The market "crash" of 2008, the beginning of the economic downturn or recession (call it what you like), began big-time in September of that year. The opposition of Saturn and Uranus began, by a standard ten-degree orb, on August 29. It continued, month after month, while people were losing up to half of their nest-egg investments, through April of 2009. It returned later that year, and has been off and on since.

Now although it appears that this means something, and I will explain further why, it is not a firm enough factor to base investment decisions upon. That is because, although it has been "off and on" since then, and is still with us, the Market has not gone up and down exactly with those off and on indications. Sometimes the Market has gone up while the opposition was in effect. However, now, near the end of the aspect, we are experiencing another Market scare and a five-week downturn. The Market has been losing steam (and investors their profits) since early in May. Here is an important fact: though the opposition had faded (because planets go retrograde from geocentric perspective) and disappeared in October 2010, it returned on April 23, 2011, just before the current five-week downturn which is depressing so many investors now and turning many into bears. (That is by the standard ten-degree orb.)

As for the future, before we look (calculated suspense, readers!) let us look at the big-daddy of Market crashes, the one at the end of October 1929.

Were Saturn and Uranus in a hard aspect then? (Hard aspects are the square and opposition, and sometimes the conjunction.) Not by our ten-degree orb. What then? Well, Saturn and Uranus began a long-lasting square, by that orb, on November 11, 1929, lasting on and off through January 16, 1932. This was the beginning of the infamous Depression of the 1930s.

Why did the precipitate Crash come before the beginning of the square? Well, this is something I have noted before in long-term cycles. For very important aspects, I have, for years, adopted an orb of twelve degrees and 52 minutes of arc. The reason for that will be understood, perhaps, by anyone who has studied the Critical Degrees based upon the 28 Lunar Mansions. This is a system from the night of time which really works. The ancients were not fools any more than we are. Ptolemy used a 17 degree orb for the sun's aspects, and a 12.5 degree orb for the moon; ten degrees for other planets. I find that the 12 degrees and 52 minutes orb, very close to the 12.5 degree orb Ptolemy used for the moon, works extremely well in case after case.

By that orb, the Saturn-Uranus square began on October 18, 1929 about ten days before the big Crash. And by that orb, these two planets would be in a square or an opposition 21.15 per cent of the time, or about a fifth of the time. It would appear that those are economically perilous times.

What bears this out is the fantastic phenomenon that this current period of economic worry and downturn (five weeks is a long time for the Market to be losing every week) began just after this aspect returned in the sky by the orb just mentioned (after being away for six months), on April 1, 2011 (or April 23 by the tighter ten-degree orb).

Now, finally, the future, which astrologers and bears and bulls are supposed to predict: This aspect is on its last legs! It ends on September 8, 2011, and will not return until 2020. (By the tighter ten-degree orb it ends on August 18.)

Again, I am not predicting the economy or the Market! It is too risky and I do not want any investors' blood (or oil or gold dust) on my hands. But I consider the former facts to be instructive as suggesting a basis for further research. Astrology is an experimental science. Where are the experimenters? I am one, but we need many more. Meanwhile the pioneers have to struggle on without assistance from those who blithely call us "pseudo-scientists."

When the real pseudo-scientists are called upon to stand up, we may be surprised at their identities.

Cosmic Piper