Posts Tagged ‘Phillip Anderson’
The 18.6 Year Cycle – we are in the final innings
(Originally posted to this website Jan 16, 2026)
I encourage people to get their hands on Fred Harrison’s book (2014) titled Boom Bust 2010.
In it, Harrison carefully explains that the global economy is synchronized to operate on approximately an 18 year economic cycle. He shows that this cycle extends back to at least the 1700s Industrial Revolution. The cycle does not operate by itself. It is manipulated by the global banking system. Bankers feed credit to the economy. As the economy responds, bankers expand the valuation of assets which means they can feed more credit into the system. Eventually the whole scheme implodes and bankers swoop in to lay claim to people’s assets through bankruptcy proceedings. Then the cycle starts anew.
Let me give you an example taken from my back year here in western Canada. A couple years ago, the excited conversation at a family gathering was about how a 160 acre parcel of land had just sold for $500,000. Farmers that were party to this conversation were almost in disbelief. What happened next was quite predictable according to the Harrison thesis. Bankers raised the assessed value of every farmer’s land in the immediate area and extended more credit to them. New trucks, new combine harvesters, new tractors were soon seen everywhere. And then…in early 2025 it happened again. A couple farmers near me sold their land to an investment group at the staggering sum of $600,000 for each 160 acre parcel. Unheard of! Bankers have since extended more credit to farmers. When I look out my office window right now I see 8 brand new John Deere combines ($900,000 each!) waiting to be delivered to farmers who have sunk themselves deeper into debt. Some back-of-the envelope math suggests a farmer buying land at these elevated prices will have to grow crops yielding 30 bushels to the acre for the next 25-30 years. That’s a tall order to fill given the climate variability we are experiencing these days. Yet, If I talk to some of these farmers they tell me that land prices will just keep rising. Wishful thinking has apparently won out over common sense…
Harrison’s observations are not new. In 1937 an obscure New York astrologer named Louise McWhirter wrote a book in which she explained that she had studied economic data going back to the mid-1800s. She found cyclicality to the data. Being an astrologer, she sought an explanation for this cyclicality. What she came up with was the notion that the North Node of Moon takes 18.6 years to travel one time around the zodiac wheel. Hence was born the McWhirter cycle or as it is often now called the 18.6 year cycle. She further observed that when the Node reaches the sign of Aquarius, the economy is entering the bottom of the overall cycle.
Based on my observations with farmland, surely we must be getting advanced in this cycle. Indeed we are. The Node is currently at 11 Pisces and will arrive at 0 Aquarius in early August, 2026.
Last night I spent some time perusing data from the B.I.S. – that’s the Bank for International Settlements. These guys are the bankers to the world’s central bankers. The data they have on their website suggests that housing market valuation in the US has now peaked. Commercial property valuation has peaked in the US also and is looking stupidly stretched in other countries.
Look at what else is happening: Cattle prices peaked in Oct 2025, Pork prices peaked in June 2025, Grains peaked in 2022 but showed a secondary peak at various points in 2025, Cotton peaked in early 2024, Oil peaked in Sept 2023, Coffee peaked in Feb 2025, Sugar in Nov 2023, and Cocoa in Dec 2024. Crypto currency peaked in October 2025. Gold, Silver, and Copper are now being chased higher, but I fear that this wild action will soon lead to a roll-over peak too.
What has not peaked (but may be about to…) is the S&P 500. Wall Street sage/oracle Ed Yardeni is calling for a substantive correction on the S&P led by the tech stocks that have inflated the index. As we all know, about a dozen stocks (many AI related) have driven the equity market over the past couple years. But now the reality is dawning….the power hungry data centers that are being built are showing a greater appetite for critical metals (used to dope the silicon GPU chips that Nvidia and AMD make), and for electrical power than what is available. This is a shaky, maybe even unsustainable situation. Tech firms are plowing enormous amounts of cash into AI. Prudent investors are now beginning to ask some tough questions about share price and valuation metrics. Moreover, the appetite for metals and power are causing geopolitical unrest – talk of taking over Canada (for its uranium that would help create small modular reactors to power data centers) and talk of annexing Greenland (for its critical minerals, hydro power, and cooler climate to support data centers).
What Has Happened Since
Ed Yardeni apparently bends to whatever the way the wind is blowing. He is now calling for S&P 8000 by year end/early 2027.
Gold and Silver peaked shortly after this post was added to this website.
The appetite for critical minerals showed its voracity when the Trump administration plowed money into a number of rare earth and critical mineral companies.
American mineral exploration companies have now staked huge swaths of land in Greenland. No need to annex the country if American companies have laid claim to mineral deposits.
Interest rates (10 Year Treasuries) have risen to levels last seen in 2007. No surprise given that America is sporting $40 Trillion in debt (this does not include items like Social Security future payments).
Housing stats remain sluggish.
Credit default swaps on Oracle debt have risen to uncomfortable levels.
What was to have been a 3 day war with Iran has now dragged on for 8 months. Energy prices remain stubbornly high and are starting to take a bite out of the economy.
The big question now is what will the remainder of this 18.6 year cycle look like? Will Wall Street be affected as it was in the 2007-2008 cycle?