by Gary Alexander
July 16, 2024
“History does not repeat itself, but it does often rhyme.” – Mark Twain
With everyone’s eyes glued to cable TV news, as usual, I want to bring you some history – as usual – in my belief that history might be a bit more helpful than speculation by a passing parade of talking heads.
The theme of last week’s Freedom Fest, as I reported here last week, was “The Brave New World,” based on a dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley in 1932, in the depths of the Depression. During the middle of 1932, however, we saw the dawn of the most spectacular two-month (or five-year) rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the 128-year history of that index. During the week of July 11-15, 1932, the Dow rose 10.3%, from its low of 41.22 – and that was just the opening round, as the Dow rose over 80% from July 11 to August 26, 1932, and nearly five-fold by early 1937, from its Depression low on July 8.
The proximate cause of that euphoria was the nomination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt for President at the Democratic National convention the previous week, giving hope to the nation for the defeat of the incumbent Herbert Hoover, who was widely blamed for the deep Depression and the eruption of homeless “Hoovervilles” across the nation. Ironically, on July 15, 1932, President Hoover cut his salary by 15%, in a vain effort to appear to be a man of the people, and to share their suffering. Hoover was a sincere man, trying to set the right example, but he only deepened the Great Depression by freezing industrial salaries at an unrealistically high level, at a time of massive deflation. He should have allowed everyone else’s salaries to fall. That would have kept unemployment rates lower, but he took a pointless pay cut himself.
Now, let’s move a dozen years ahead to the advent of FDR’s unprecedented fourth term, following his unprecedented third term. Although relatively young, at 62 in 1944, FDR and his doctors knew he was on death’s door. FDR also knew that his incumbent Vice President Henry Wallace was a friend of the Soviet Union and so would not be an appropriate successor after his death, so FDR quietly engineered the firing of his VP and the installation of a more moderate, more likable Harry Truman as his successor in 1945.
President Biden ought to take a lesson from FDR in 1944 and pick his replacement (or next VP) wisely.
Next, we turn to assassination plots. On July 20, 1944, the very day that President Franklin Roosevelt was nominated for his unprecedented fourth term at the Democratic National convention, the top news story of the day came out of Germany, where Klaus von Stauffenberg left a briefcase concealing a time bomb at Adolf Hitler’s feet during a meeting, and then excused himself. The bomb killed four people, but a broad, thick table leg shielded Hitler, who was only slightly wounded. Thinking Hitler dead, the conspirators met in Berlin to make a peace offer with the Allies, but by midnight, most conspirators, including Klaus, were dead. On that day, British premier Winston Churchill flew to France to meet Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery. It would have been a perfect day to end World War II, if that bomb had done its job.
This leads me to the Curse of the Kennedys, which I encountered last week in Las Vegas at Freedom Fest.
The Curse of the Kennedys – Revived at Freedom Fest
Ironically, it was 25 years ago today, on Friday, July 16, 1999, after the Dow had peaked at 11,209.84, shortly after the market closed, that John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife and her sister flew a private jet to Cape Cod. They crashed, and so did the market. The Dow fell 5% in the second half of July 1999 and the Dow was down over 10% by October before reviving its bubble run up to a new peak on January 14, 2000.
Also on July 16, in 1969, the first moon-landing mission took off from Florida. The touchdown date on the moon was set for Sunday, July 20, but while mankind was making one giant leap onto moon sand, the youngest Kennedy brother, Ted, was making a small step toward oblivion, under a full moon: On Friday night, July 18, 1969, Ted drove over Chappaquiddick Bridge and allowed Mary Jo Kopechne to die in the shallow water there. The 1960s were summarized by a moon landing and a moonlit night under a bridge.
A family of important Kennedys were born in late July: First, JFK’s mother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (on July 22, 1890), then first-born son, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. on July 25, 1915 (he died in 1944, when his bomber exploded); and then JFK’s wife Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, born July 28, 1929. Also, their daughter’s husband, Edwin Schlossberg, husband of Carolyn Kennedy, was born on July 19, 1945.
At Freedom Fest last week, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. spoke for 30 minutes on Friday, July 12th, and he had to bring his own security detail, at his own expense, as he has been denied Secret Service protection by the Homeland Security office of the Biden Administration, after at least five formal requests – despite what happened to his father and uncle, and despite polling 15% in some Presidential polls, which is the traditional threshold for being invited to debates and earning federal protection against gun violence.
The next afternoon, Saturday, while I was attending a two-hour session revisiting the JFK assassination by a pair of authors who had examined irregularities in the slicing and dicing of the Zapruder film before its release, and the faked autopsy of JFK’s brain and body after the attack, we heard news of the shooting of President Trump in Pennsylvania. Talk about a chilling coincidence and timing for hearing that news!
The heart of the conference was the talks and Film Festival. There were many profitable speeches I could cite. One came from conference founder Mark Skousen in evaluating Professor Joseph Stiglitz’s new book, “The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society,” a take-off on the free-market classic, “The Road to Serfdom,” by Friedrich Hayek. Stiglitz writes (on page 235) that, “Globally, government has played an important role in the countries with the highest growth rates,” while “unfettered markets have created many of the central problems we face, including inequalities, the climate crisis and America’s opioid crisis” (page 279). In the past, I have countered these myths about income inequality (in Senator Phil Gramm’s book), as well as the climate pollution and opioid exports by China and others.
But here is a single chart to dispel Stiglitz’s assertions. The Fraser Institute and Heritage Foundation conduct studies showing that the countries with the highest levels of economic freedom enjoy a better environment, less poverty and a more fulfilling lifestyle – top to bottom – plus better market returns:
Graphs are for illustrative and discussion purposes only. Please read important disclosures at the end of this commentary.
All content above represents the opinion of Gary Alexander of Navellier & Associates, Inc.
Also In This Issue
A Look Ahead by Louis Navellier
The Fed Dithers While Inflation Withers
Income Mail by Bryan Perry
Bond Yields Appear to Be Normalizing in the 4% Range
Growth Mail by Gary Alexander
“The Week That Was” vs. “Rhyming History”
Global Mail by Ivan Martchev
An Assassination Attempt + The Curse of the Mega-Caps
Sector Spotlight by Jason Bodner
This is a Big Year – For a Lot of Reasons
View Full Archive
Read Past Issues Here
About The Author
Gary Alexander
SENIOR EDITOR
Gary Alexander has been Senior Writer at Navellier since 2009. He edits Navellier’s weekly Marketmail and writes a weekly Growth Mail column, in which he uses market history to support the case for growth stocks. For the previous 20 years before joining Navellier, he was Senior Executive Editor at InvestorPlace Media (formerly Phillips Publishing), where he worked with several leading investment analysts, including Louis Navellier (since 1997), helping launch Louis Navellier’s Blue Chip Growth and Global Growth newsletters.
Prior to that, Gary edited Wealth Magazine and Gold Newsletter and wrote various investment research reports for Jefferson Financial in New Orleans in the 1980s. He began his financial newsletter career with KCI Communications in 1980, where he served as consulting editor for Personal Finance newsletter while serving as general manager of KCI’s Alexandria House book division. Before that, he covered the economics beat for news magazines. All content of “Growth Mail” represents the opinion of Gary Alexander
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