You own a small business. Your business is just recovering from the COVID Crisis. Wow, that PPP loan sure came in handy. There are some great business opportunities out there, assuming you can find enough employees; but you’re scared. It’s been 13 years since the Great Recession. Isn’t the next stock market crash and a bad recession just around the corner? Is it safe to expand your business right now? Should you order that big machine? Should you open a new division to sell doohickies? After all, doohickies are not that much different from your current widgets. Some of your existing customers might actually be buyers of doohickies.
I say you should expand! Nothing is going on, and that is fantastic for American businesses. Left alone, and assuming they are not terrified, the owners of hundreds of thousands of small American businesses will invent new products and figure out new and cheaper ways to make widgets and whatsits. That’s the big advantage of American capitalism. Each business owner is motivated by capitalism and greed to make his business bigger and more efficient. Becoming more productive is the default mode for Americans. No communist commissar has to tell Americans what to do. We do it automatically. It’s our default mode.
Okay, George, and your point is…? Nothing is going on! And this helps by…? The lack of news is wonderful. President Xi of China is dialing back his bullying. New case of COVID are declining. We will probably never know if China was working on biological warfare and accidentally let a virus slip out, and that may actually be a good thing. No one is dragging China before the World Court, seeking trillions in damages. Nothing is happening, and that is flippin’ wonderful for business! Once again:
If left alone, and assuming they are not terrified, the owners of hundreds of thousands of small American businesses will invent new products and figure out new and cheaper ways to make widgets and whatsits.
Because the news is boring, I predict that the GDP numbers six months from now will surprise delightfully to the upside. Go expand your business.
“But George, just 45 days ago you predicted a market crash in 18 months.” In order to have our next big market crash, we need to have some some big malinvestment, like empty, see-through office buildings in 1989, dot-com stocks in 2001, and subprime mortgages in 2008. I had suggested that some enormous losses in cryptocurrencies might be the next big malinvestment, but only after a far larger bubble had been formed. Since Elon Musk popped the bitcoin bubble, I am not seeing an even larger bubble in cryptocurrencies growing.
And as I look around for other bubbles and malinvestments, I see nothing glaring and obvious. No news is not just good news. Heck, it’s fantastic news. Go expand your business!
By George Blackburne
