Jon Markman believes in the Double Top forecast!

Well what do you know...suddenly "mainstream" commentators are saying that the stock market might fall as much as 75% from peak, or at least pretty close.

Jon Markman's latest column suggests that Dow 4,000 (or lower) is possible if you do the math. His math doesn't involve measuring chart formations, or suggesting the S&P fall as much as NASDAQ did in the early 2000s (though he cites the latter as a comparison). His math involves taking corporate earnings through their expected scenario over the next few years.

He then says his scenario might be "too rosy." But of course, we know everyone gets over-pessimistic when imagining worst-case scenarios.

So I say, don't let these doom-and-gloomers get you down! The market is not going to fall 90% like in the great depression! Nor will it likely fall 80% like NASDAQ did in 2000-2. In all likelihood it will only decline a modest 75%. Don't give up hope!

And of course the S&P is the one to watch, not the ridiculous Dow. So he may be right about Dow 4000, though Dow 3500 would align more closely to S&P 500 of 400.

But the significant thing is, Markman is the first major columnist to go nuclear like this. He's depicting a doomsday scenario with credit card defaults, near double-digit unemployment, a year of negative growth, the whole works, and saying that this is what we should expect. And he's laying out the case calmly, not like some crazed blogger with his charts and graphs (ahem).

The common chorus recently was "we'll get through this" without saying what the "this" is. Only characters like Roubini—not widely known, and dismissed by the press—had been forecasting major doom and gloom, even as recent events fell upon us. Now Markman is basically joining him. Jim Jubak and others have mostly been saying things will be bad without giving details, and others (like Ben Stein) have been saying all along that nothing bad will happen.

Want to know when the crisis is over? Wait until Ben Stein throws in the towel and admits he was completely wrong, the sky really is falling! When he advises you to sell everything now, saying the country is dead and capitalism is destroyed...then you can buy confidently and clean up in the Great Recovery of the 2010s.