The Astrology Of The Global Financial Fuqery

Voila, my opinionated look at financial crisis astrology. It’s not – obviously – investment advice. Uranus and Pluto eras are fantastic ways to view the economy and politics. Their periodic aspects to Saturn make the energy more accessible.

Or, less pleasantly, felt in everyday-ville. 2020’s Saturn-Pluto conjunction is the first since late 1982, an economic annus horribulus in many realms. Happily, the zeitgeist toward less consumption, slow fashion, sustainability, and less debt-reliance is environmentally friendly and strategic prep for 2020.

It is disconcerting to be on the verge of Uranus in Taurus with so much geopolitical and economic hyperflux. But there are potentially fantastic outcomes from the new era incoming.  It is easy to see the late Eighties and Nineties trend of increased faith in so-called economic rationalism reflected in the 1988 to 1996 passage of Uranus in Capricorn.

Uranus = revolutionary and the sign of Capricorn broadly signifies the business system. It did seem like a revolt against fusty old government departments at the time. Governance was out of style.

All over the Western world, governments privatized publicly owned assets. Labor became more “mobile” – that is, many locals were now competing with imported workers able to work at lower costs. Debt grew easier to access. I think it was the observant (quadruple Virgo) Bernie Sanders who pointed out that the more freely available debt was a way to conceal earnings decline.

Leveraging options previously only available to business people with an appetite for risk became de riguer for everyday people. The debt aversion of the Pluto in Cancer generations (pre-baby boomers) was a relic. The Uranus in Capricorn era did not birth what we now called Neo-Liberalism, but it was when it became government policy.

The late 90s and early 2000s saw Uranus in Aquarius + Pluto in Sagittarius spring game-changing inventions such as Netflix and the Smartphone, with all the associated technologies. It was also the ascent of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and ultra-cheap air travel. The latter was ironic as climate change awareness was also becoming more mainstream. Property bubbles and a debt load that is now increasingly seen as toxic began to form.

Culturally, you could see Uranus in Pisces from 2003 in the growing presence of lives lived online and digital identities that were sometimes entirely separate from the everyday one. Think also app culture and the splintering of once broad demographics into a zillion micro-demographics. Official arbiters dissolved into everyone being a content creator and critic. User Reviews and “People who bought this also bought…” algorithmic recommendations became the only metric that mattered.

In 2006 the Law of Attraction ur-text The Secret – was published. It was arguably a spawn of Pluto in Sagittarius and Uranus in Pisces “positive thinking” on meth. It felt like everything got leveraged. Everyone was a multi-level marketer. Investment risk was the new “no-brainer.”

On the macro side, the use of offshore tax havens by big companies had dramatically risen, and millions of jobs transferred to emerging economies. It was part of the plan, the rising tide that lifts all boats, a new system working as it should. Many industries and professions boomed – from mining to financial planners and Pilates instructors.

If your house is out-earning you and you can legally leverage off its perceived value to borrow more, than anyone can aspire to the ‘designer’ life. But bubbles burst and booms end.

Pluto went into Capricorn in 2008. So-called economic rationalism was not so rational after all. Oops, they broke the financial system. The Lehman Bros collapse was the opening stanza of Pluto in Capricorn. The credit crunch swiftly followed. Bitcoin + other crypto-currencies appeared in January 2009, at the end of Uranus in Pisces. Fun times. Then, you would think, the whole mess would have been cleaned up and new structures created so that such a debacle could never occur again. But no…

Interest rates went to ’emergency lows’ and stayed there, decimating savings but inspiring – you guessed it – more debt. Quantitative Easing – primarily the creation of more money for the banks to lend out – was introduced.

Aside from in Iceland and the case of the Ponzi merchant Bernie Madoff, it did not seem like anyone got punished for the Global Financial Crisis. The taxpayers footed the bill. Little was done to prevent the sort of build-up of enmeshed loans and dependencies that led to the GFC in the first place. The story was left open for the prequel; GFC 2 or Global Financial Fuqery.

Then, with Uranus in Aries, came the “disruptive” businesses – Uber, Airtasker, Airbnb and a host of others. Did these sorts of companies empower people to become self-employed or did they glorify low-employment? Was Airbnb an innovation, or did it just remove rental stock from the market and undermine communities?

This style of start-up butting against established business models was a core theme of the Uranus-Pluto square era (the Zap Zone) from 2012 to 2015.

A new breed of tech Titans replaced the old. In many parts of the world, property shot up to absurd, irrational prices. Globalism on steroids saw countries lose most of their manufacturing base, becoming more reliant on imports or selling off assets like land. In some cases, they ran down their fuel or food reserves.

Now, with Uranus about to be in Taurus, we have the classically Taurean themes of populism (the Yellow Vests movement in France, for example), anti-globalist groups on the left and right, as well as climate change concern peaking among even the most skeptical people.

The worst case scenario is that whacko dictators seize control of the narrative and we all get re-feudalized, only it’s digital a la an episode of Black Mirror.

But the best case, which I think is more likely, is that Uranus in Taurus sees a groundswell of environmental awareness among consumers + voters. And that Uranus in Taurus common sense demands a more equitable society. Without our approval, they cannot keep getting away with this crap. And that this inspires perfectly profitable new business models.

In classical astrology, Taurus IS agriculture, grain, Gaia and our land. Uranus is ingenuity and revolution: we can turn this around. It could feature more sustainable money practices and reasonable valuations. I am going big on the Vegan, minimalist, non-flying, herb-growing, debt-averse, natural medicinal aspect of things.

It would also be wise to hedge against Global Financial Fuqery in late 2019 and 2020, with Saturn + Pluto meeting for the first time since 1982. But remember that Uranus in Taurus is in harmony with Saturn + Pluto in Capricorn.

There is bound to be some sort of financial reckoning with the current structure and you could argue that the neo-liberal world order began in the early 1980s. This is an excellent read on that and a good indicator that establishment people are getting woke to it.

Aside from the optimistic view of Uranus in Taurus being politicians doing their job and looking after the people who elected them + not destroying eco-systems so that they can personally profit, I am positive about Pluto in Aquarius! It’s not until 2024, but I can see it as – yes – robots. But also as people being free to live without religious repression. They would freely choose their spiritual beliefs, regardless of the culture of their birth.

Thoughts?