The Economy: Winter Is Coming
Fans of HBO’s hit series Game of Thrones know well the motto of House Stark: “Winter is Coming.” This motto warns of impending doom, whether brought on by the Starks themselves, devastating multi-year, cold weather, or something far more ominous north of the Wall.
At least since Soviet economist Nikolai Kondratieff wrote The Major Economic Cycles in 1925, recessions have been associated with winter weather.1 Although Kondratieff’s theories contained as much fantasy as Game of Thrones, using seasons as an analogy for the stages of a business cycle is intuitive. If spring represents recovery, and summer the peak of economic growth, then the U.S. economy may well be in autumn. All should be as wary as the subjects of Westeros (the realm of focus in Game of Thrones).
Also, just as recessions are not phenomena endogenous to free markets (but rather, as discussed above, caused by an artificial expansion of the money supply typically produced/coordinated by central banks), so too the winters in Westeros appear to be generated from an artificial, exogenous source. As protagonist John Snow explained in describing the supernatural White Walkers: “the true enemy won't wait out the storm. He brings the storm.” The Night King is the Westerosi version of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve (with the primary difference being the Night King purposely brings about winter).
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Very well written, I love the analogy of the 4 seasons representing the state of the economy. I would say we are late summer.
this is beautifully written. and a great point. are you noticing bearish signs/sentiment anywhere?
I see alot of good talk about the stocks and the indexes. maybe thats a sign that its about to go bad lol
I've only learned a economics for something like 3 years and I haven't even completed my second year in trading. What I see is bad signs growing without actually popping. I wouldn't be even slightly surprised even if things go on without a problem for another 3 years. The longer it takes, the harder the crash would be. This crash might even eclipse the great depression or at least be second to great depression only.
I even think that the euphoria is still to high for things to properly crash. We might not even see any real crash during Trump. But when they do, it would be more global than the housing crash. Europe might actually crash before US or along with it.
The only investment I trust at the moment are Crypto and some small startups if you can verify them to be sound investments.
It really is a good analogy, especially considering that the seasons in the world of GOT are not annual, but they fit a calendar that covers decades.