It was quite a week. If you live in, or watch closely the politics of the United States, you would have noticed that several members of George W. Bush’s cabinet had resigned early this week, less than 2 weeks after the election. The most notable of these, and perhaps the most moderate member of Bush’s cabinet during his first term, was General Colin Powell. Although so many resignations, and especially that of Secretary of State Powell may have surprised most of the public, those who study astrology probably were not surprised. After all, President Bush is currently experiencing the station of Saturn in conjunction to his own natal Saturn at 26 degrees of Cancer. Astrologers are very familiar with the 29-year “Saturn Return” cycle in one’s life. It is a time when one reassesses his/her direction in life, especially involving work. It is a time when many relationships, as well as one’s goals in life, are likely to go through many changes. It can coincide with a period of intense demands, feelings of being abandoned, and/or a sense of completion (or ending) of an important phase of one’s life. It is unlikely, however, that Bush relates so much to the latter point, as his programs are far from completed.

There were also several other surprise reports by the end of the week. Friday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal had two interesting stories on the very front page, which relate to the downside of the Saturn-Pluto cycle discussed at length in previous editions of this column. One headline states “Congress Approved a whopping jump in the federal debt limit.” By a very narrow margin, the House passed a 37% increase in the Federal debt since Bush became president, to a new record level. But the investment community didn’t seem to blink an eye, for even with this record spending, the U.S. debt is still a smaller percentage of the GDP than it was in the early 1990’s. However the rest of the sane people in the U.S.A. will note that it is no longer as low a percentage as it was in 2001 when Bush took office. The trend does not look promising at all, and this passage by the House portends room for spending on a lot of special interests.

The other interesting story related to the Saturn-Pluto down phase was that “The IRS increased its audits of high-income taxpayers by 40%.” Now the reason this is interesting is because of one of Bush’s campaign pledges to overhaul the Federal Income Tax, and – by deduction – the IRS As well. You see, one of the cornerstones of Saturn and Pluto moving from position to conjunction (2002-2020) is that taxes tend to increase, not decrease. And yet President Bush has already reduced taxes considerably since taking office, and has promised to continue slashing individual taxes. But at the same time, he ahs also made one of his priorities for this new term to be the transformation of the social security system. He knows (I think) that by the time we get to end of this decade, a huge number of the American population – known as “Baby Boomers” – will start retirement. They will start withdrawing from their Social Security savings, right in the middle of this Saturn-Pluto down swing (at the waning square), at the same Uranus will form a T-Square formation to both (2008-2010). Bush knows that with so many “Baby Boomers” retiring, that there will be a crisis paying out their social security checks, unless some drastic changes are applied very soon. He knows these reforms will be painful.

And what sort of painful, drastic changes will have to take place in order to make good on his promise that Baby Boomers will indeed be able to collect from the social security? I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that the younger working generations will have to pay more social security taxes in order to make sure the system is solvent. But wait a minute. That means…. there will have to be an increase in social security taxes by the end of this decade? Uh huh. The question is not whether to raise taxes or not to insure the system stays afloat, but when do you raise them? And what is the danger of waiting longer and longer to raise these taxes? You can start to deal with the issue now, as Bush has implied we must do, and that will probably drive the stock market into a prolonged bear market that will last most of the duration of his current term in office (through 2008). Or you can wait, and let the next President deal with it, by which time it will probably be a major crisis, and lead to a bear market that will last most of the next decade, until Saturn returns to conjunction to Pluto in January 2020. I don’t think Bush can have it both ways. He can’t solve the looming social security crisis AND not raise social security taxes during his last term in office. If he raises taxes, he presides over a very difficult economic environment in about 1-3 years. If he doesn’t he passes the responsibility off to the next president, who will then blame Bush for not tackling the problem when it could have been addressed a little less painfully. Either way, a difficult economic time for America looms ahead. It is either down into Saturn square Pluto in 2008-2010, and building a foundation for greater growth during the next decade. Or else we spend as much as we can through the rest of this decade, and suffer a far worse recession (depression) through most of the next decade, in to the conjunction of Saturn-Pluto in 2020.

And finally, on Friday, Alan Greenspan spooked the market by saying what we all knew to be true. According to CNBC, the FED Chairman stated “Look Out! They are going up!” He referred to interest rates. And on that announcement, the U.S. stock market promptly ended its 4-week rally and sold off sharply. The sell-off couldn’t have begun at a more astrologically telling time. After all, this is the middle of the huge geocosmic cluster zone of November 4-December 5. The midpoint is indeed right now. Not only were stock markets of the world making new multi-month and even multi year highs going into this period, but so too are Gold and foreign currencies (against the Dollar). It is indeed an almost perfect time to commence a trend reversal, according to these celestial signatures.

During the past week, both the German DAX and the London FTSE stock index made a new two-week high, soaring above 4180 and 4800 respectively. And both the Netherlands AEX and Swiss stock markets made new 4-month highs, rising to 345.90 and 5720 respectively early in the week.

In the Pacific Rim, the Australian All Ordinaries made yet another new all-time high, rising above 3900 for the first time ever last week. The Hang Seng of Hong Kong is testing 14,000 as of last week for the first time since March of 2004. But the Japanese Nikkei is still well off its yearly high, reaching only 11,268 last Tuesday before falling back below 10,900 by Friday’s close.

In the Americas, the DJIA crossed 10,600 for the first time in several months, but it was still a shade below its yearly high of 10,753 of February 19. And following Greenspan’s warning, it fell back to close the week at 10,456. The NADASQ Composite did soar to a new 2-year high, up to 2112.20 on Wednesday, before softening into Friday’s close. And the same with Argentinean Merval stock index, which exploded to a new 8-year high at 1339.64 on November 8. But by last Monday, it was all the way back to 1216.29. Are the highs for the move over? Might be! And while the stock markets fell, Gold rose to a new 16-year high, and the Euro to a new all-time high, against the Dollar. Both markets look like they are in runaway blow offs. But again, this is a huge time band of geocosmic clusters, and with Mercury about to go retrograde in about week, no trend is likely to remain intact throughout this period, which last through December 5. Our biggest concern, however, is the stock market, and the belief that the down side of the Saturn-Pluto cycle is about to resume. It could be now, and it could be yet in a couple more months. With long-term cycles, you know they are coming. But sometimes pinpointing the exact top is not an easy art.

I deal with this subject in great detail in this year’s Forecast for 2005 book. Order it now to make sure you get it on time. It might be your best investment of the holiday season J. And it will make a great gift for that special someone who watches financial markets, and maybe needs a wake up call to what astrology has to say about the current times we live in.

Announcement: You can now pre-order next year’s Forecasts for 2005 book at $39.95. This unique overview of each year covers forecasts and critical reversal dates for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Gold, Silver, T-Notes, Euro, Swiss Franc, Japanese Yen, Corn, Soybeans, Wheat and Crude Oil markets. Plus it provides astrological insights into the U.S. and World Economy, as well as the USA Presidency. It even has a section on the year ahead for each of the 12 signs of the zodiac, by Raymond Merriman! As always, this book is written between October and November of the previous year (2004), and is shipped out upon return from the printer, around December 15. Order now and lock in your reservation for next year’s book! For further information on pre-ordering next year’s book, please go to our website at www.mmacycles.com, and click the banner on ORDERS or BOOKS.

Disclaimer and statement of purpose: The purpose of this column is not to predict the future movement of various financial markets. However, that is the purpose of the MMA (Merriman Market Analyst) subscription services. This column is not a subscription service. It is a free service, except in those cases where a fee may be assessed to cover the cost of translating this column from English into a non-English language. This weekly report is written with the intent to educate the reader on the relationship between astrological factors and collective human activities as they are happening. In this regard, this report will oftentimes report what happened in various stock and financial markets throughout the world in the past week, and discuss that movement in light of the geocosmic signatures that were in effect. It will then identify the geocosmic factors that will be in effect in the next week, or even month, or even years, and the author’s understanding of how these signatures will likely affect human activity in the times to come. The author (Merriman) will do this from a perspective of a cycle’s analyst looking at the military, political, economic, and even financial markets of the world. It is possible that some forecasts will be made based on these factors. However, the primary goal is to both educate and alert the reader as to the psychological climate we are in, from an astrological perspective. The hope is that it will help the reader understand these psychological dynamics that underlie (or coincide with) the news events and hence financial markets of the day.

No guarantee as to the accuracy of this report is being made here. Any decisions in financial markets are solely the responsibility of the reader, and neither the author nor the publishers assume any responsibility at all for those individual decisions. Reader should understand that futures and options trading are considered high risk.