Ignore The Warning Signs...
At Your Peril...
Do the math…..2008 + 18 = 2026.
Now do yourself a huge favor and read the following book…
It may not look like it. It may not feel like it. But we are sitting on the cusp of a crisis. The last time we were on such as cusp was in 2007. What followed as we went into 2008 was downright scary. Such is the 18 year cycle of the economy and this is what author Phillip Anderson painstakingly researches in his book.
If you are old enough to have experienced this 2008 sh*t-storm, then you know what I am talking about. If you were in grade school or high school during this 2008 event you are probably raising your eyebrows and rolling your eyes right about now. All I can say is - the next 12 months will be very illuminating for you. Learn from it. And try not to get hurt along the way.
What has my attention piqued is that no two of these cycles end the same, aside from land and real estate prices declining. In the 2008 trainwreck, there was no BitCoin, there were no high flying AI stocks. How these investment themes will play into the coming decline remains to be seen.
There are cracks appearing in the ground under our feet almost on a daily basis now. Consider the following:
Jan 1, 2026 (New York Times): The Condo Market Hasn’t Been This Bade in a Decade
J.P Morgan, Jan 27, 2026: After nearly doubling in the last decade, J.P. Morgan Global Research sees U.S. house prices stalling at 0% in 2026,
Canadian realtor Re Max says: “Despite lower pricing and greater product selection, buyer sentiment remained subdued in the Canadian condominium segment, as inventory continued to saturate major markets across Canada in 2025.”
Canada’s real estate market opened 2026 in a slump, as national house sales transactions were down 16.2 per cent from a year earlier, according to the latest data from the Canadian Real Estate Association.
Take a look at agricultural commodity prices - Wheat, Corn, Soybeans. These commodities have peaked (Corn in 2025, Wheat and Soybeans in 2022).
BitCoin reached a peak in 2025 when it probed the $128K level.
Oil price peaked in 2022 and has been gradually declining since.
A flotilla of warships is parked in the Persian Gulf right now; guns pointed at Tehran. The administration in Washington is giving the ayatollahs until late next week to reach a deal concerning missiles and enriched uranium or else….. I think we know what “or else” means. Ask Venezuela - they will tell you…
And so on….
Now, there is one other warning sign to consider. In recent years, as banks tightened their lending activities over the past couple years (yes… bankers are well aware of the 18 year cycle), this opened the door to the private credit market. Private credit funds were set up. These funds would borrow money from high net worth investors and in turn lend money out to small and medium-sized business start-ups. The people putting money into these funds were told they would earn a very nice return ( around 12%) on their investment.
And initially they did earn a nice return….until they didn’t. Now panic is starting to build in the private credit sector. This panic has the potential to spread to other sectors of the economy. Consider what brokerage firm Janney Montgomery Scott had to say: “The majority of loans in private credit funds that individual investors tend to own, they’re high yield loans. They are, by their nature, somewhat risky.”
In 2006-2007 we had sub-prime mortgages. Now this time around we have sub-prime private credit. Such is the rhythm of history.
JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon also issued a warning recently to the effect that private credit risks were hiding in plain sight, and that more cockroaches will emerge once economic conditions deteriorate.
And sure enough, investors recently became uneasy that AI large language models were going to be disruptive to various industries. When the herd gets nervous, when the cockroaches start to scurry across the floor, irrational behavior can quickly spread across the economy.
If you are looking for a stock that will help you better appreciate the growing cracks in the ground, I have one for you….
