Source: Wikipedia

Dear Diary,

The Dow fell hard on the first real day of trading in 2015 – down 331 points, or 1.9%.

And US crude oil fell below $50 a barrel, as pumpers kept on pumping to try to keep up with their debt service costs.

We don't know if this heralds bad things for investors in the year ahead. But it reminds us that, in the struggle between Mr. Market and Ms. Janet Yellen, Mr. Market will have his way – eventually.

Most likely, the “buy the dip” reflex of last year will assert itself again.

US stocks will go back up. For a while.

But they must go down sometime. And when they head down in earnest, Ms. Yellen will panic. She will promise investors more money… and set the stage for the final act of this economic tragicomedy.

The Road to “Hormegeddon”

“Marx was right,” we explained at a dinner party last night.

“What must happen will happen. Macroeconomics and politics are path dependent. Once on the road to ‘hormegeddon' you don't get off. There are no ‘solutions.'”

This view proved as unpopular in Paris as it is with our own dear readers. Objections followed. We are a clever race; surely we can find our way out of our oversized debts without a crash or depression.

Larry Summers thinks so. He and 5,000 other economists spent the weekend in Philadelphia, offering diagnoses and prescriptions.

Oh, dear reader, what an opportunity. So many economists in one place. The quacks were heard as far away as Baltimore and New York.

Larry Summers said he foresaw a long period of stagnation in the developed world. But he felt that this was an economic ailment… like psoriasis or ADD… and that he was qualified to treat it.

Other economists disagreed. Summers's diagnosis was wrong, they said. The developed nations were not in a prolonged period of stagnation. Thanks to the drugs already administered by others of their métier, the economy was recovering.