What’s so important about the number 7? Why does it keep coming up? This is the question posed by Peter Degraaf in a commentary on Kitco, posted last Thursday.
Reaching back to forty nine years ago (7 x 7), in 1966 the USA experienced a ‘credit crunch’. In August of that year the US bond market suffered a serious ‘liquidity crisis’.
Seven years later in 1973, the world experienced an ‘oil embargo’ followed by a dramatic rise in the price of oil. There were long lines of cars at gas stations.
Move forward by 7 years and in 1980 Wall Street avoided the collapse of some of its banks and brokerage houses by forcing the Hunt Brothers to stop accumulating silver.
Another seven years passed and in the fall of 1987 stock markets crashed around the world. ‘Black Monday’ of October 1987 saw the Dow lose 22% in one day.
Then seven years later, in 1994, the bond markets crashed.
Seven years passed and in 2001 Wall Street was closed for 5 days due to the militant Islamists attack on the World Trade Center in New York. The DOW lost 684 points on Sept 17th 2001. Banks received billions of dollars of newly created money from the Federal Reserve, to keep the system afloat.
The seven year cycle moved on and in 2008 we saw the Subprime Housing Market Collapse, along with the overnight bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. The Lehman investment bank fell so fast, none of the employees had any idea their jobs were disappearing. The DOW lost 777 points on Sept 29th 2008. The banking system almost collapsed, (banks refused to cash checks except after a three day ‘hold’, for fear that the issuing bank might fail), but the US FED saved the day, by massive injections of newly created cash, not only into US banks, but also some Canadian and foreign banks. The debt problem was ‘solved’ with more debt!
On the 7th straight of 7 year cycles, the Dow lost 777 points?? I think if I was into numerology I’d be saying, “you’ve got to be kidding me!” and “are you trying for style points?”
Continue reading “Why Does the Number 7 Keep Showing Up??”
