He may be onto something. There&#x27;s a huge and widening gap between GAAP vs. Non-GAAP earnings: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.zerohedge.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;images&#x2F;user5&#x2F;imageroot&#x2F;2016&#x2F;02&#x2F;24&#x2F;S%26P%20PE%20GAAP%20non%20GAAP_0.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.zerohedge.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;images&#x2F;user5&#x2F;im...</a><p>U.S. corporations have issued more than $9.9 trillion in debt since 2008. Last year, corporations issued a record $1.5 trillion in debt.<p>76% of the companies in the S&amp;P 500 bought back their own shares ...most companies used debt to pay for these buybacks, in a clever move of financial engineering to boost EPS.<p>To top it off, we&#x27;ve been in a multi-quarter earnings recession  for the S&amp;P, and total retail sales growth has dipped below 3% which has always correlated with a recession:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i0.wp.com&#x2F;bawerk.net&#x2F;wordpress&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2016&#x2F;04&#x2F;Retail-Sales-since-1968-w-recession-threshold.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i0.wp.com&#x2F;bawerk.net&#x2F;wordpress&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;201...</a>