The Silver Bear Cafe

July
28
2016

A Psychiatric Diagnosis Of The U.S. 'Market'
Charles Hugh Smith

Schizophrenic Disconnect From Reality, Bipolar Mania, Psychotic Delusions of Wealth

If you think a delusional market is healthy, it's time for a psychiatric exam.

What diagnosis would an experienced psychiatrist offer when presented with the bizarre behavior of the U.S. stock market? We assume that the wild mood swings of greed and fear are "normal" for markets devoted to short-term profit and speculation, but the stock market's disconnect from reality is far beyond mere mood swings.

The stock market thinks it's solidly on pavement, but in reality it's like a car flying off a cliff: the Wiley E. Coyote moment is just ahead. There's nothing but air beneath the stock market.

Consider the reality of PE expansion from a price-earnings (PE) of 10 at the bottom in 2009 to 18+ today, while profits are stagnant. And what is driving this expansion other than a delusional belief that profits will magically reverse and log massive gains in the second half of 2016?

If we strip out "one-time expenses" and other accounting flim-flam, profits are plummeting. How else can we characterize this disconnect between stagnant sales (look at Apple, CAT, etc.) and "profits" that are one step away from outright fraud as anything other than delusional?

As global trade, U.S. rail traffic and other non-gameable measures of economic activity stagnate or decline, how can anyone connected to reality expect sales and profits to rise sharply?

The stock market is hitting new highs for what reason? The typical answer is: more central bank stimulus is on the way, the Fed/ BoJ /Bank of China/ European Central Bank have our back, etc. etc. etc.

But the reality is obvious to all: the returns on central bank stimulus have declined to near-zero. Trillions in additional stimulus are needed to just keep the delusional markets from experiencing gravity (see car photo above).

And how about the manic mood swings from panic in February (i.e. a whiff of reality) and the euphoria of new highs in summer? If this isn't the acme of bipolar delusion, then what is?

Perhaps the greatest delusion is the confidence that this ephemeral bubble "wealth" is actual wealth that can be counted on to fund pensions and insurance claims in the future. Pity the deranged souls who actually believe that stock gains based on fraudulent claims of "profit" and delusional expectations of rising profits as the dollar strengthens and the global economy implodes are "wealth" that can be considered permanent.

The only possible diagnosis of this stock market

1. Patient (the U.S. stock market) is suffering a schizophrenic disconnect from reality.

2. Patient (the U.S. stock market) is suffering from bipolar mania that leads to delusional beliefs in delusional profits and delusional central bank omnipotence.

3. Patient is suffering from psychotic delusions of wealth, akin to the delusion that the patient is ruler of the world, galaxy, universe, central banks are all-powerful, etc.

If you think a delusional market is healthy, it's time for a psychiatric exam.

At readers' request, I've prepared a biography. I am not confident this is the right length or has the desired information; the whole project veers uncomfortably close to PR. On the other hand, who wants to read a boring bio? I am reminded of the "Peanuts" comic character Lucy, who once issued this terse biographical summary: "A man was born, he lived, he died." All undoubtedly true, but somewhat lacking in narrative.

I was raised in southern California as a rootless cosmopolitan: born in Santa Monica, and then towed by an upwardly mobile family to Van Nuys, Tarzana, Los Feliz and San Marino, where the penultimate conclusion of upward mobility, divorce and a shattered family, sent us to Big Bear Lake in the San Bernadino mountains.

The next iteration of family took us to the island of Lanai in Hawaii, where I was honored to join the outstanding basketball team (as benchwarmer), and where we rode the only Matchless 350 cc motorcycle on the island, and most likely in the state, through the red-dirt pineapple fields to the splendidly isolated rocky coastline. In 1969-70, this was the old planation Hawaii, where we picked pine in summer beneath a sweltering sun.

We next moved to Honolulu, where I graduated from Punahou School and earned a degree in Comparative Philosophy (i.e. East and West) at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. The family moved back to California and I stayed on, working my way through college apprenticing in the building/remodeling trades.

I was quite active in the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) and the People's Party of Hawaii in this era (1970s).

I next moved to the Big Island of Hawaii, where my partner and I built over fifty custom homes and a 43-unit subdivision, as well as several commercial projects.

Nearly going broke was all well and good, but I was driven to pursue my dream-career as a writer, so we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1987 where I worked in non-profit education while writing free-lance journalism articles on housing, design and urban planning.

Within a few years I returned to self-employment, a genteel poverty interrupted by an 18-month gig re-organizing the back office of a quantitative stock market analyst. I learned how to lose money in the market with efficiency and aplomb, lessons I continue to practice when the temptation to battle the Monster Id strikes.

Somewhere in here my first novel was published by The Permanent Press, but alas it fell still-born from the press--a now monotonous result of writing fiction. (Seven novels and I still can't stop myself.)

I started the Of Two Minds blog in May 2005 as a side project of self-expression, and in an unpredictable twist of evolutionary incaution, that project has ballooned into a website with about 3,500 pages that has drawn almost 20 million page views.

The site's primary asset may well be the extensive global network of friends and correspondents I draw upon for intelligence and analysis.

The blog is #7 in CNBC's top alternative financial sites, and is republished on numerous popular sites such as Zero Hedge, Financial Sense, and David Stockman’s Contra Corner. I am frequently interviewed by alternative media personalities such as Max Keiser, and am a contributing writer on peakprosperity.com.

www.oftwominds.com

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