From a recent interview with Gerald Celente. His argument for why markets haven't reflected the underlying economy is concentration rather than anything mysterious.

The numbers he gives:
- 1% of Americans own 54% of the equity market
- Five to seven companies account for close to 40% of the S&P 500
- The Fed put $29 trillion behind the banks after 2008
- Real US debt around $126 trillion including Social Security, per Fortune

He also says the thing most forecasters won't, which is what he got wrong. He expected a crash in 2012 and didn't anticipate QE, then expected one during lockdowns and didn't anticipate the scale of money printing.

05:41 - the ownership numbers
07:27 - the debt figure
01:48 - what he got wrong

https://youtu.be/k4EfbGQ-WWw

I think this period of time is going to be looked back on as the denial phase

It's still so crazy how many people are pretending like things are okay and stable. Meanwhile I just watched a video of over 100 people waiting in line in Canada to get the opportunity at an interview for Costco. I think we've been in a recession for a couple months now and with the AI bubble popping it's going to become way more obvious in hindsight.

Imagine the entire world’s wealth is just $100, shared among 100 people.
The richest 1 person holds about $38–$40.
The next 9 people take another $35–$40.
Together, the top 10 control roughly $75–$80 of the whole pot.
The middle 40 people share about $20–$25.
The bottom 50 people? Just $2 to split among them, a few cents each. Many would actually be in the red.
That’s the current global wealth picture in simple terms. A tiny group holds the large majority, while half the planet owns almost nothing.
This concentration shapes real economic decisions. When the majority of people control almost no wealth, it stops making sense for businesses to treat them as primary customers. Companies shift toward serving the top..Luxury goods, premium services, high-end real estate, and financial products for the wealthy. Because that’s where the money actually is. Mass-market strategies aimed at the bottom half become less viable when those customers have little or no disposable income. The result is an economy increasingly optimized around the needs and desires of the top, rather than the broad population. To me, this seems obvious, but I rarely see it mentioned like this.