The 2009 bull market is third-longest in history: Seven-Year Anniversary: From the Depths of the Crisis, a Bull Run
If you go back to the archives and other posts, you will see that I was among the few pundits who called for a continuation the bull market, even as far back as 2011, as everyone else was predicting ‘crisis’ ‘inflation/deflation’ ‘recession’ and so on. The fed, the US consumer, high-IQ people, exporters, and web 2.0 – all helped, not Obama, who simply rode on the coattails of the successes of smarter people who laid the groundwork for the recovery that continues to this day.
Given that we’re just a few months shy of #2, it will soon be the 2nd longest bull market ever, and I would not be surprised if it takes the #1 spot, too. I still don’t see meaningful headwinds for why the market should collapse as it did in 2008 or 2000 [1].
The way I see it, a bet against the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq 100 is a bet against capitalism, human ingenuity and high-IQ – a bet that I sure as hell would never make. Yes, people are being left out, and the left sees this as justification for why the economy is weak, but also the nature of capitalism is changing, too, with fewer but bigger winners and more losers. The forever rising stock market is an example of Social Darwinism 2.0 in action, with IQ more important than ever, of the most successful and productive being rewarded with rising asset prices (web 2.0 valuations, home prices, stocks, etc) for their economic contributions.
Maybe ‘exit‘ [2] will be the most successful creating their own societies, free of the pull of liberalism that punishes success. But right now, the insular, meritocratic communities of Silicon Valley and other places, enriched by Web 2.0 and stock market windfalls, are a precursor.
[1] It’s going to be slow going. Probably another year of choppiness until new highs are made.
[2] Some in the ‘NRx-sphere’ seek collapse and rebuilding; I (and maybe some others) seek secession, ‘exit’, or incrementalism to some form of techno-monarchy. Or the ‘singularity’.