Long waves, K-waves, Super-Cycles, Kondratieff Wave, named after Russian economist Nikolai Kondratieff, refers to cycles, lasting about 40 to 60 years, experienced by capitalist economies.
Nikolai Kondratieff was the first to bring these observations to international attention in his book The Major Economic Cycles (1925).
The K wave is a 60 year cycle (+/- a year or so) with internal phases that are sometimes characterized as seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter:
- Spring phase: a new factor of production, good economic times, rising inflation
- Summer: hubristic ‘peak’ war followed by societal doubts and double digit inflation
- Autumn: the financial fix of inflation leads to a credit boom which creates a false plateau of prosperity that ends in a speculative bubble
- Winter: excess capacity worked off by massive debt repudiation, commodity deflation & economic depression. A ‘trough’ war breaks psychology of doom.
Kondratieff Winter, which is intensifying in 2020, is the deflationary phase after credit inflation forms a debt bubble in capitalist economies that are using debt based monetary system.
After an aging bull market, in 2020, Deflationary Depression is imminent. The bestseller book Conquer the Crash makes the deflationary case crystal clear.
We recommend the Deflation e-Book to understand Inflation vs Deflation scenarios in the biggest financial crash the world has ever seen.