You used to hear it all the time in the 90s: it’s the new economy, man! Endless prosperity and boundless new highs in the stock market were ours to enjoy forever. That is, until reality rode back into town right around the year 2000.

Those days have long since passed so I’m here to welcome you to the NEW new economy. Don’t ask me what it is because I don’t know. But that’s OK, because no one else knows either. You see, the rules have changed, only no one is quite sure how. What we do know is that things have gotten really, really weird.

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Forget about market fundamentals: P/E ratios, debt ratios, earnings, blah blah blah. Forget about technicals: Double-tops, support, resistance, who cares? Those concepts were relevant in the good old days, but not in our super-duper never-a-bear-moment, new and improved 21st century government/central bank managed and manipulated market.

That’s right folks. I’m talking about market manipulation and I’m here to tell you that the idea is no longer the exclusive domain of wackos and nutjobs like me. Market management has become so blatant, so undeniable that even Stephen Roach of uber-mainstream Wall Street firm Morgan Stanley recently wrote “I am not a believer in conspiracy theories. But the Fed’s behavior since the late 1990s is starting to change my mind.”

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