The Great Depression Ahead: How to Prosper in the Debt Crisis of 2010 - 2012 » (Revised and Updated)

Harry S. Dent, Jr., is President of the H. S. Dent Foundation, whose mission is "Helping People Understand Change." In his first book, The Great Boom Ahead, published in 1992, he stood virtually alone in forecasting the unanticipated boom of the 1990s. He has since authored two bestselling books, The Roaring 2000s and The Roaring 2000s Investor. A Harvard MBA, Fortune 100 consultant, new venture founder and investor, and noted speaker, Dent offers a refreshingly positive view of the future with practical applications at all levels.

The first and last economic depression that you will experience in your lifetime is just ahead. The year 2009 will be the beginning of the next long-term winter season and the initial end of prosperity in almost every market, ushering in a downturn like most of us have not experienced before. Are you aware that we have seen long-term peaks in our stock market and economy very close to every 40 years due to generational spending trends: as in 1929, 1968, and next around 2009? Are you aware that oil and commodity prices have peaked nearly every 30 years, as in 1920, 1951, 1980 — and next likely around late 2009 to mid-2010? The three massive bubbles that have been booming for the last few decades — stocks, real estate, and commodities — have all reached their peak and are deflating simultaneously.

Bestselling author and renowned economic forecaster Harry S. Dent, Jr., has observed these trends for decades. As he first demonstrated in his bestselling The Great Boom Ahead, he has developed analytical techniques that allow him to predict the impact they will have. The Great Depression Ahead explains "The Perfect Storm" as peak oil prices collide with peaking generational spending trends by 2010, leading to a more severe downtrend for the global economy and individual investors alike.

He predicts the following:

• The economy appears to recover from the subprime crisis and minor recession by mid-2009 — "the calm before the real storm."

• Stock prices start to crash again between mid- and late 2009 into late 2010, and likely finally bottom around mid-2012 — between Dow 3,800 and 7,200.

• The economy enters a deeperdepression between mid-2010 and early 2011, likely extending off and on into late 2012 or mid-2013.

• Asian markets may bottom by late 2010, along with health care, and be the first great buy opportunities in stocks.

• Gold and precious metals will appear to be a hedge at first, but will ultimately collapse as well after mid- to late 2010.

• A first major stock rally, likely between mid-2012 and mid-2017, will be followed by a final setdback around late 2019/early 2020.

• The next broad-based global bull market will be from 2020-2023 into 2035-2036.

Conventional investment wisdom will no longer apply, and investors on every level — from billion-dollar firms to the individual trader — must drastically reevaluate their policies in order to survive. But despite the dire news and dark predictions, there are real opportunities to come from the greatest fire sale on financial assets since the early 1930s. Dent outlines the critical issues that will face our government and other major institutions, offering long- and short-term tactics for weathering the storm. He offers recommendations that will allow families, businesses, investors, and individuals to manage their assets correctly and come out on top. With the right knowledge and preparation, you can take advantage of new wealth opportunities rather than get caught in a downward spiral. Your life is about to change for reasons outside of your control. You can't change the direction of the winds, but you can reset your sails!

Publishers Weekly

Dent, former strategic consultant at Bain & Company, outlines the features of what he predicts will be the next Great Depression. The author argues that "demographic trends were the greatest drivers of our economy, along with radical new technologies," working together to follow "a four-stage life cycle of innovation, growth, shakeout, and maturity." While Dent's doomsday predictions are depressing, his theories are persuasive and elaborated in meticulous descriptions of historic economic trends and cycles. The author's candor is refreshing, especially when he discusses how equity investments "experience a wide variety of returns, including substantial losses or extraordinary gains"-and that the financial press has failed to remind the public of this fact. The book offers welcome portfolio allocation strategies during an economic crisis, as well as the bad news that the worst of the housing downturn "will occur between 2010 and 2013." Along with domestic forecasts, Dent addresses terrorism's economic roots and the growth of megacities in South and East Asia with characteristic thoroughness. (Jan.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Acknowledgments xv

Prologue: Simple Principles Drive Complex Change 1

Chapter 1 The Debt Crisis of 2010-2012 . . . Why It Will Be Very Good for Our Country 17

Chapter 2 The Fundamental Trends That Drive Our Economy: Demographic and Technology Cycles 43

Chapter 3 New Geopolitical, Commodity, and Recurring Cycles: With likely Stock and Economic Scenarios for Years and Decades Ahead 73

Chapter 4 The Greatest Bubble Ever in Real Estate: The Demographics of Real Estate, the Greater Credit Crisis, and the Likely Depression Scenario Ahead 107

Chapter 5 Echo Boomers Continue to Move to the Southeast, Southwest, and Rockies: Opportunities for Businesses, Developers, and Municipalities in the Downturn 139

Chapter 6 Changing Global Demographic Trends: The Rising East and Emerging World Versus the Succession of Aging Western Nations 175

Chapter 7 The Clustering of Risks and Returns: Why Traditional Asset Allocation Strategies Will Fail Miserably in the Decade Ahead 253

Chapter 8 Investment, Business, and Life Strategies for the Great Winter: How to Profit in a Deflationary Economy 281

Chapter 9 The Political and Social Impacts of the Next Great Depression: The Coming Revolution and "New Deal" in the United States and Globally 321

Index 363