Customer Reviews

The Great Depression Ahead

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This is not a book for the ages, i.e. this book will not be read at all ten years from now. But even as for reading it in the present, this book pretends to be an exhaustive summary of today's illness rather than what it actually is: amongst other things, a play to get scared folk, wannabe financiers and wannabe real-estate types to shell out the cash to subscribe to Harry Dent's newsletter.

The only positive about this book is that if you are completely ignorant, then this book has some information. But it is precisely these people that are easy to lead down the wrong path. The information about demographics is illustrative and makes sense, if you can separate it from the claims and propaganda that surround it. And finally, none of this book will be new at all to those who are interested in such things, the information all being available.

This book is shilled by plenty of financial people, a head of a Federal Reserve bank and even a governor. To counter such power, let me critique it chapter by chapter:
Prologue - Sounds very reasonable. Makes the case for everything being explained by an analysis of a lot of 'cycles' in history, and the process of Dent's continuing evolution of his research methods.
1.The Great Crash of late 2009-2010 - A full chapter of forecasts without any explanation why. Many of them sound reasonable, but it slowly starts to stretch your belief.
2.The Fundamental Trends that drive our economy - Contains the two cycles that make sense, a demographic cycle and a technology cycle. However, the combination of the two cycles at the end of the chapter seems wrong.
3.New Geopolitical, Commodity and Recurring cycles - Is he dreaming? This chapter seems fantastical. A civilization cycle every 5000 years?? A terrorist cycle every 8-9 years (based on 1993 WTC and 9/11, and therefore 2010!)??? Or, is that some kind of warning?
4.The Greatest Bubble ever in real estate - This seems to be his area of expertise. Combines demographics to make sense in different real estate categories.
5.Echo boomers continue to move - This chapter on migration makes sense ONLY given existing assumptions. But what if Americans cannot as many cars as they have in the past? What if oil reaches new peaks? These fundamentals will change migration trends.
6.Changing Global Demographic trends - This might be new to many people, but if you're aware of this already, again there's nothing new. There is an investigation of many individual countries across the world.
7.The Clustering of Risks and Returns - Seems designed to intimidate and seems out of place in a supposedly non-technical book. A clustering of various mathematical concepts and didn't seem to have any connection (at least to me, and I don't think I'm dumb), and the chapter ends by stating, out of the blue, that conventional investing strategies won't work.
8.Investment, Business and Life Strategies for the great winter - This chapter has his investing ideas. Invest in bonds; How to invest each year from now on; and what to do with your business, education and healthcare in the coming years.
9.Political and Social impacts of the Great Depression - This chapter makes sense and ends with forecasts that might or might not be true.

All in all, this book sounds like a wishlist of what Dent wants to come true. But is it reliable? He states that inflation cannot happen, but what if it does. Will you lose your money? Wolves like these among the sheep make this book dangerous, which is why the book insert has the 'Read this at your Own Risk' disclaimer. Ultimately, the topic he is addressing is a very complex topic which needs time and effort to be understood. But there is a mass market for instant comprehension that Dent is trying to satisfy. All said and done, in the Great Depression, the financial sector will collapse from being 15% of the US economy to less than 5%, and people like Dent have to find ways and means to survive. What better than coming up with a mass-market bestseller to enrich oneself and continue doing so.

In his book "Great Boom Ahead", Dent correctly predicted that productivity and the US Economy would soar in the 1990's. Since then, virtually every prediction he has made (like his prediction that the Dow would hit 32K) has been spectacularly wrong. I enjoyed reading "Great Boom". It was well presented. This latest book, however, is in serious need of editing. It reads like it was written in less than 1 week, constantly repeats itself, and is filled with predictions without justification. But worse yet, the writing constantly refers to charts to explain his argument, but in the Kindle version most of the charts are missing. For instance, in chapter 3, charts 3.1-3.5 are nowhere to be found. Ditto for chapter 4. Maybe the print version is better, but this Kindle version is a waste of money.

But is this not the same "economist" Harry Dent about whom Wikipedia says:

"In 2000, Dent predicted that the DOW would reach 40k, a prediction which was repeated in his 2004 book. In his book, he also predicted the NASDAQ would reach 13-20k. In late 2006 he revised his forecasts to much lower levels, estimating the Dow would reach 16-18k and the NASDAQ 3-4k. In January 2006, he predicted that the DOW would reach 14-15,000 by the end of the year. It ended 2006 at 12,463, 11% below the lower end of his prediction. It ended 2007 at 13,264, again significantly lower than Dent's revised prediction of 15,000 by early 2008. Since then, the Dow crossed 14,000 in late 2007 before retrenching."

If so and Wikipedia is accurately describing his predictions, I think I will try my Magic 8 Ball instead.