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Astrology And Economics, Part One: “The New Normal”?

People are naturally concerned about the state of the world economy, and their personal finances in particular. In the readings I do for people, economic matters are becoming of greater importance, and they were pretty important before all this. And one question I get asked a lot is: “will this ever be over with? When do we get back to normal?”

The answer is complicated. Bear with me and I’ll walk it through you as painlessly as possible.

The Saturn Pluto conjunction of January 2020 gets a lot of blame for the state of the world when it comes to the pandemic. Personally, though, I’m not sure that transit was the only culprit.

What I do know is that the last Saturn Pluto conjunction happened in the early 80s in the late degrees of Libra — November 7, 1982, to be exact. For those of you who weren’t around back then, when you think of the 80s you probably think of catchy popular music and too much hairspray. You wouldn’t be wrong but there was a lot more to it than that.

The early 80s is when the idea of “trickle-down economics” really started to kick in. Let me summarize that concept for you. The idea is that if a millionaire has a business and can run it efficiently enough to make a profit, both he and the business should get a tax cut. That way the business can expand, the millionaire can buy another yacht, and that creates jobs for people in that factory and for yacht builders.

In some ways that worked out pretty well. Since the 1980s the cost of things like TVs and home electronics have overall gotten much lower, when adjusted for inflation. But consider the actual effect it has had on the world in general — beyond the millionaire and billionaire level, that is.

The Simpsons first debuted in the early 1980s. Think about this for a second: We have a household of five people. One has a good, full-time union job, which he normally shows up for. Then we have a stay-at-home mom, and three kids. If you were starting The Simpsons from scratch from today, though? You’d have to explain how these people can afford a house.

The Saturn Pluto conjunction January 2020 is closely Square where the Saturn Pluto conjunction happened in 1982. I sometimes tell my clients that when you have your Saturn return you have to make some adjustments… But then on the next Saturn Square, you have to make adjustments to your adjustments. I believe that’s where we’re at now economically.

NEXT TIME: We’ll talk about “supply chains.” Bring chips!