A dollar earned today, we hope, will buy a dollar’s worth of goods tomorrow. But history shows one big undulating cycle of inflations and deflations going back in time as far as records can take us. Inflation is especially feared.
Inflation Mugs Investors
The most recent period of rampant inflation in the U.S. was through the 1970s and into the early 1980s, as Neptune was moving through Sagittarius opposite the U.S. natal Gemini Uranus and Mars. William Greider captures a slice of this time in Secrets of the Temple:“The Dow Jones industrial average...was trading around $900 in mid-1979, no higher than the level it had reached ten years earlier. But $900 was worth a lot less now. An investor who bought a portfolio based on the Dow Jones average in 1969 and held it for ten years would have lost about half the value of his money.”
Like the Crash of 1929
In other words, even though the stock average had remained at 900 points, $100,000 invested in 1969 had become $50,000 by 1979. For some, this was as devastating as the crash of 1929.When the oil embargo of 1974 hit, Neptune was at 6 degrees Sagittarius, within 2 degrees of an exact opposition to the U.S. natal Uranus in Gemini. Uranus is famous for the unprecedented, sudden surprise. One day in 1974, stopping for gas was business as usual; the next day, there were long lines of cars waiting for gas pumps.
New Car Bonanza
By the early 1980s, some California property values were rising so rapidly that people were buying for $90,000 and selling two weeks later for $120,000. A Manhattan jeweler complained that his customers were making out like bandits—they could sell a piece bought for $1,000 last year for $2,200 because jewelry prices were rising 120 percent a year. Before this inflation ended, it became possible to buy a new car, drive it a few months, resell it, pay off the loan, make a down payment on another, and come out with a profit.
New World Bonanza
Back in 1492, most Europeans weren’t aware that someone named Columbus had sailed west in search of India and bumped into a “new world.” During the 1500s and 1600s, prices in Europe rose five fold (2). The Spanish imported a bonanza of gold, and their coins circulated throughout Europe and the American colonies.By 1610, Neptune reached Virgo, conjunct where it would be when the U.S. was born in 1776, and another breakout of inflation would occur. Prices spiked in the American colonies when an army of patriots was raised and paid with paper money, an innovation back then.
"Not Worth a Continental”
The U.S. came into existence “on a full tide not of inflation but of hyperinflation—the kind of inflation that ends only in the money becoming worthless.”(3) The phrase “not worth a Continental” was coined to describe the situation during these Revolutionary War years, when a pair of shoes in Virginia cost $5,000 Continental dollars.
“Truth has been called the first casualty of war. Money may, in fact, have priority.”
It takes Neptune about 165 years to circle the zodiac, and when it reached its halfway point, opposite its natal place in the U.S. birth chart, the Civil War loomed. Government expenditures went from $67 million to $475 million the first war year, and by 1865, reached $1.3 billion. From 1861 to 1864, prices rose by 74 percent, the steepest inflationary spike since the Revolution (5). Astrologically, as Neptune’s opposition to its natal position was separating in 1860, Uranus, transiting through Gemini, came conjunct to the U.S. Mars, and thus square the U.S. Neptune for this spike.
Neptune Conjunct U.S. Mars
In the 1890s, when Neptune was conjunct the U.S. Mars in Gemini, and thus square its natal position in Virgo, the young nation got into a spat over the price ratio of silver to gold. It reminded some wags of Sir Thomas Gresham’s law, stated in 1556, that “bad money always drives out good money.” Economist John Kenneth Galbraith calls it “probably the only economic law that has never been challenged.” The silver-gold dispute climaxed at the Democratic Convention of 1896 (with Neptune in Gemini conjunct the U.S. Mars), when William Jennings Bryan railed against the gold standard. Bryan was defeated, and the gold standard came into being.In 1917, during World War I, prices in the U.S. doubled, and increased slightly more in Europe.
Wage and price controls
They were tentatively tried on both sides of the Atlantic. Many praised these for controlling what might otherwise have become another hyperinflation. Neptune during this time was in Leo, making no adverse aspect to its U.S. natal position in Virgo and Mars in Gemini.Wage and Price ControlsNeptune returned to its natal Virgo position as the Great Depression ended and World War II arrived, and again inflation raised fears. Given the experience during World War I, Congress enacted more stringent wage and price controls, and inflation was checked. By early 1940, with Neptune conjunct its natal position in Virgo, the Consumer Price Index ticked up only 2.1 points, compared to 15.7 points during the OPEC embargo of 1974, when Neptune was opposite the U.S. natal Uranus.History shows two things about inflation: First, transiting Neptune signals danger times when it forms adverse angles to the U.S. natal Uranus and/or Mars-square-Neptune pattern. Secondly, it has been possible to minimize inflation by enacting wage and price controls.As I write this, the price of gasoline has jumped 50 percent in less than a year as OPEC has again curtailed oil production to create an artificial shortage. This raises the possibility of another spike of inflation.
If it happens, it will be the first time in American history that inflation has spiked with Neptune out of adverse aspect.Based on this astrological history, the more likely scenario is that the world economy will find a way to weather this latest price attack from OPEC.
"Walt Disney used astrology to pick the best times for launching his multi-million-dollar entertainment projects."
