USA Watchdog, Released on 9/2/23

What is the big deflationary downward spiral going to look like for John Q Public? Ackerman predicts, “On the scale I believe it has to happen, it looks like a barter economy. We are talking about kind of a Stone Age. There are a lot of jobs in the economy where you would be hard pressed to say what these people do. Most people would not be able to tell you why they are worth what they are being paid. This would be true for 98% of the people who work for Twitter. A lot of those jobs will disappear. Imagine what you have when you have that kind of disposable cash taken out of the economy. It has more than a ripple effect. It has a tsunami effect. Everything downstream collapses too. So, I really see a state of barter. . . . Full disclosure, I said we were close to a collapse 10 years ago, but I really think we are close this time. I think we are not further away than a stock market implosion. This inflated stock market is a crazed animal right now that does not relate to reality, earnings or anything. It’s always in danger of collapsing tomorrow. As far as a precipitous deflation, it will be simultaneously with the collapse of the stock market. . . . We are at a much higher threshold than the past. The edifice is much more fragile and precarious than it has ever been. All we need is for the inevitable bear market to begin, and then it is game over.”

Rick Ackerman is the editor and publisher of Rick’s Picks, an online service for traders from novice to expert. He has been trading himself for more than 40 years, a dozen of them as an options market-maker on the floor of Pacific Stock Exchange. CNBC and Bloomberg have featured his work, and he has written on the markets and the economy for numerous publications, including Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities;Stocks, Futures & Options; Barron’s and The San Francisco Examiner. A headline in Barron’s labeled him an “intrepid trader” after he helped the FBI solve a notorious pill-tampering case. He received a $200,000 reward and a guest appearance on FBI: The Untold Story. An epic party on San Francisco Bay celebrated the event.

  Rick Ackerman