American Consequences - February 2021

• Guns and ammo would fly off the shelves. If you wanted to buy either, you would have to stand in line. • The stock market would hit a new all-time high in late February only to plunge 34% in about one month. • The U.S. Federal Reserve would cut its benchmark federal-funds rate by 150 basis points – effectively to zero. Then it would print roughly $3 trillion of new U.S. dollars to support the economy and the financial system. • Congress would sign off on an unprecedented $2 trillion stimulus package – mailing personal checks directly to people’s homes. Assuming you knew all this one year ago, what would have been your guess for the performance of various asset prices this year?

What if one year ago, you knew that over the course of 2020... • A pandemic would shut down much of the global economy, creating the steepest economic contraction since the Great Depression. • Thousands of restaurants and other businesses would close their doors in a matter of weeks – leaving millions of Americans unemployed and desperate. • Everyone who could work from home would work from home for most of the year. • There would be a huge public debate about whether the suicides and poverty in the wake of economic lockdowns were worse than the roughly 1.5 million people killed worldwide by the pandemic. • Violent protests would occur in dozens of American towns and cities, including nearly every night for at least five months in Portland, Oregon.

THIS IS THE RISKIEST STOCK MARKET OF THE PAST 100 YEARS

By Dan Ferris

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American Consequences

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