With the S&P 500 finally retaking 2800 after a small sell-off in February, it looks like I was right again to buy the dip and to ignore the naysayers who predict crisis and recession and who have been constantly wrong since 2009, and will continue to be wrong for the foreseeable future. On February 12, I refuted some of the most common objections to my bullish thesis, and those objections, nearly half a year later, remain true. Nothing has changed. The fundamentals, despite the market being up 300%+ since 2009, are still intact, and with rates still low and GDP and other data strong, but also especially with the stabilizing effect of large tech companies (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon), I reiterate it may be at least a decade until there is another bear market and recession.
This is because as these tech companies grow to consume and control the entire economy, business cycles will become a thing of the past, which is already happening as evidenced by the unprecedented endurance and stability of the post-2009 recovery, which is officially the longest ever (surpassing that of the 90’s). Large tech companies are much less volatile and sensitive to macro conditions than other sectors, which means as these tech companies grow to control the economy, there will consequently be less economic volatility overall. Amazon and Google will eventually branch out to insurance and healthcare, and may even take over roles morally associated with federal and state governments.
So far in 2018 I was right about:
Google, Amazon, Tesla, and Facebook stock keep going up
No web 2.0 bubble burst
Home prices keep rising in Bay Area and nationally, too; no housing market bust
No bursting of the ‘college tuition/loan bubble’ (For some reason, everyone keeps predicting this, and they keep being wrong. As long as the college wage premium keeps rising, which it most certainty will, so to will student loan debt and tuition, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.)
Wealth inequality will keep widening (again I was right that it would not lead to crisis).
No civil unrest (really easy prediction; right again)
Bitcoin falling (no-brainier. Bitcoin has no practical use)
That Trump wouldn’t do much: no wall, no sweeping immigration reform
That the tariffs would have no perceptible negative impact on US economy
That the post-2013 centrism/rationalism surge, as a backlash and repudiation of Obama-era SJWl liberalism, would continue (now it’s called the IDW)
No impeachment or any sort of proceedings (really easy prediction; right again)
No Tesla ‘cash crunch’ (people online keep predicting that Tesla will run out of money and go bankrupt)
I was right about Amazon not being hurt by Trump’s USPS tweet. I was also right about Facebook not being hurt by the fake media outrage over privacy. I was correct that the vast majority of Facebook and Instagram users are not nearly as concerned about privacy and data collection as the media narrative is purporting. The old left-wing media (such as the New York Times) is threatened by Facebook (especially after the 2016 election) and they want people to be outraged over Facebook so they can be indoctrinated by CNN and MSNBC instead. It’s not at all about the ‘purist of truth’ and accuracy in reporting; rather, it’s about getting people off of the internet and on to TV and print media, and to get people off of Amazon and instead into left-wing, low-IQ/ stores such as Target. That’s why the the media keeps posting negative stories about Amazon working conditions, so that people are outraged and stop using Amazon. [1]
[1] But what if Amazon’s working conditions are really as bad as the media says? I don’t deny there is room for improvement, but according to indeed.com, Amazon’s ratings are on par with Target, yet Amazon gets for more negative media coverage of its working conditions than Target.