American Democracy in a War Zone

What will new normal look like in the months ahead?

The New Year is just getting started and bad news continues to crest. 

A killer pandemic, depression-era economic trappings and insurrection in the Nation’s Capitol and elsewhere has many in a sour mood and wondering what comes next.   At this moment it’s not clear how worried everyone should be about more lawless segments of the population, but awareness of the seriousness of the threat is sharply focused and the nation is on high alert.   

Our functional democracy survived some of the most intense and chaotic moments in modern U.S. history when tyranny came knocking.  The good news is that change, some of it hopeful, is on the way.

Business astrologer Grace K. Morris, MA, writes that a new 20-year cycle began on December 20, 2020. On this date, gas giant Jupiter moved out of the earth sign of Capricorn and into air sign Aquarius, where it joined Saturn at zero degrees of the sign.  

Morris is author of How to Choose Stocks to Outperform the Market.  She is Editor and Publisher of the Astro Economics News Letter and Business Editor for the Astrology News Service (ANS).  She explains that, for planetary pairs, conjunctions mark the end of one cycle and beginning of the next. 

Auspiciously, on President Biden’s Inauguration Day, the Sun will also join Jupiter and Saturn in a robustly challenged triple conjunction.  As this trio moved together, the Sun and planets were forming stressful aspects with eccentric Uranus and the war planet Mars, which were conjoined 90 degrees away in the sign of Taurus, where neither planet is particularly well placed in the cosmic scheme of things.   

For the first time since the Civil War soldiers were bivouacked in the nation’s capitol as the Biden era was beginning.  War with an unseen virus continued to extract a heavy toll.  And the new administration struggled with a public relations nightmare: what can make millions of otherwise erstwhile citizens unlearn and reject patently false claims about election fraud they fell for earlier hook, line and sinker.

MAGA Hats Disappearing

The assumption is the MAGA hats will eventually disappear and there will be life after insurrection.  Astrology provides some clues regarding what this might look like.

Morris says there are significant differences in the keywords astrologers use when describing the astrological signs of Capricorn and Aquarius.  Capricorn is the sign identified with big business and big government, with the wealthy, with fossil fuel, with law and order and with preserving the past. Among other things, Aquarius is the air sign most associated with the common man, with inventions, with climate change, with world organizations, and with renewable energy.

It is Aquarian influences that will be ascending as we move beyond insurrection, which means the country may soon be rejoining the World Health Organization, the Paris Climate Agreement and the Iran Nuclear Deal if feasible.   

Morris describes a noticeable shift or change that occurred between the U.S. election on Nov. 3, 2020, when Jupiter and Saturn were in the sign of Capricorn, and 78 days later on Inauguration Day when the pair had moved into the sign of Aquarius.

“The Covid-19 virus has proved to be a catalyst for change. As 2021 arrived new vaccines became available to help stem the massive tide of virus-induced deaths in a severe pandemic not seen in more than 500 years,” she said. 

“The virus changed the way we do business and the way we live. It speeded up the use of teledoc medicine, telework from home instead of office, and telelearning as children studied at home and not in the classroom.  Zoom (ZM) was the fastest growing stock in 2020 as communication with office and families became a necessity.

“Home delivery, shopping on the internet, and video game sales soared while restaurants went out of business.  Instead of buying J.C. Penney’s and Sears Amazon plans to buy more malls as fulfillment centers. Amazon gets the space and doesn’t need the retail business,” she said.

Who is most likely to be the world’s first trillionaire?  Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has a shot, she believes.

Interest Rates Holding Steady

Those planning to buy a house in coming months may be pleased to learn that interest rates will not be a problem for several more years.  U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has announced that interest rates will remain low and has urged Congress to help people remain in their homes, which will help the economy recover.

“We’ve been writing about the inflation cycle for more than 35 years and it continues to work right on schedule.  It’s all about the 14-year Neptune cycle,” she explained.

“In the late 1970s and early 1980s interest rates and inflation were at 18 percent and 21 percent respectively.  At the time Neptune was in the fire sign Sagittarius, but we predicted that high inflation and high interest rates would drop in January 1984, when the planet moved into earth sign Capricorn.”

Morris says that’s the way it happened. Interest rates and inflation continued dropping through the rest of the 1980s and, by the 1990s, were down to 2 percent in the U.S. and negative in Japan.

“The Fed is not about to let negative rates happen in the U.S.  The next inflationary cycle begins in January 2026, when Neptune enters the fire sign Aries.”

Historically, Morris says the economy and stock market are usually about six months apart in their direction, but this was not the case in 2020 when they became widely separated. The economy fell sharply as the pandemic devastated businesses and profits, but the stock market boomed.

“This year there should be a return to that six-month connection as there is no inflation, low interest rates, and a continuing secular bull market.  Also, there’s the further stimulation in fiscal policy the Fed Chair has been urging for more than a year.  Coupled with a new plan for infrastructure this should boost the economy by adding new jobs and more consumer spending. 

“Also, after four years of disastrous trade policy, the world can return to a global free trade policy where everyone benefits,” she said.  

Photo credit: Tyler Merbler from USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons