"The Next Ten Years Will Be As Good As the 1990s" - Ken Fisher

According to a report on Bloomberg, the next decade will be as good for investors as the 1990s, so says Ken Fisher, the billionaire chief executive officer of Fisher Investments Inc., dismissing notions that developed economies face below-average growth.

Fisher said the concept of a “new normal” is “idiotic,” pitting him against money managers including Mohamed El-Erian, the CEO of Pacific Investment Management Co., which coined the term to describe a world of high unemployment, more regulation, and the shrinking importance of the U.S. in the global economy.

“We are chimpanzees with no memory,” Fisher said at the Forbes Global CEO Conference in Sydney. “The next 10 years are going to be just as good as the 1990s. The problems in this current environment we think are so different, and so new and so unique. It’s the same stupid old normal we’ve always had. We’ve got a great future.”

Any revaluation of China’s currency against the dollar is unlikely to have a long-term effect on investors, said Fisher, who oversees $35 billion from Woodside, California.

The U.S. is seeking a stronger yuan after its trade deficit with China widened to $145 billion in the first seven months of this year, from $123 billion for the same period in 2009.

Skepticism and pessimism are normal sentiments for investors 18 months after the bottom of a bear market, according to Fisher, who said in July 2007 that the global credit crunch was “just all minor volatility” and “just fears of much ado about nothing.”

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed for eight of the 10 years, from 1990 to 1999, including five consecutive annual gains of at least 19.5 percent in the second half of the decade. In London, the FTSE 100 Index also rose for eight of the 10 years.

Pimco, based in Newport Beach, California, used the phrase “new normal” last year, forecasting an extended period of lower-than-average economic growth. Bond and equity strategists, bankers and economists adopted the term as concerns grew about Europe’s debt crisis and the strength of the global recovery.

“We can quibble about details, but right now, we’ve got the world snarky, skeptical, pessimistic, which is normal a year and a half after the bottom of a big bear market,” said Fisher. “It’s what we always get.”

Fisher’s sentiments echo those of Warren Buffett, who said, “"I am a huge bull on this country. We will not have a double-dip recession at all. I see our businesses coming back almost across the board."