MarketWatch Columnist Predicts 2012 Financial Crash
If you think I’m nasty when it comes to ranting about Wall Street, meet Paul Farrell. Farrell is a columnist for MarketWatch (and who I introduced to readers way back on June 13, 2007), and his latest piece should hopefully hammer home the gravity of the situation I’ve been warning about for the last two-and-a-half years. Farrell wrote yesterday:
It’s coming in 2012: Another, bigger meltdown of Wall Street’s “too-greedy-to-fail” banks. No, this is not another fanatical warning about that Dec. 21, 2012 end-of-days prediction based on the Mayan calendar, though you may well ask “Who will survive?”
Here is what’s happening: History is repeating itself. Wall Street’s soul-sickness is setting up a new meltdown. Dead ahead. Be prepared.
My track record speaks for itself. Back on March 20, 2000, my column headline read: “Next crash? Sorry, you’ll never hear it coming.” Bull’s eye: The dot-com bubble popped at 11,722. The economy collapsed. A 30-month recession. Markets lost $8 trillion. Today the market is still below that 2000 peak. Factor in inflation and Wall Street’s “too-greedy-too-fail” banks have lost about 30% of your retirement nest eggs in this decade. Incompetent? Clueless? No, Wall Street is a bunch of crooks without consciences.
Since 2000, my columns have covered many warnings of major debt accumulation, market meltdowns, and the psychological failings of Wall Street’s greedy, myopic brains. Last June we summarized 20 predictions made between 2000 and 2007 warning of a subprime meltdown coming. Oddly, no one seemed to be listening to all the warnings from leading minds like Buffett, Grantham, Gross, Faber, Shilling, Roubini, Fed governors, and many more. Was that a repeat of 2000 with no one listening?
Suddenly it hit me: It’s just the opposite: Everyone is listening and everybody knew a crash was coming — but we were in a trance, including Washington’s bosses. Bernanke, Bush, Paulson, Greenspan all heard it. So did Wall Street, and Main Street.
Unfortunately America’s collective brain was addicted to the adrenaline rush of gambling in a risky bull. The euphoria is intoxicating. We were caught up in a game of musical chairs, squeezing out every last dollar of return, blind to the catastrophe ahead until caught by surprise. Unfortunately, Wall Street lacked a moral compass and stole trillions from American taxpayers. Today, the only lesson Wall Street has learned is “greed is good.” Now the beginning of the end has become a moral tragedy that is setting the stage for an implosion of Wall Street, capitalism and our economy circa 2012.
Source: TOONPOOL Cartoons
Source:
“Wall Street’s 2012 meltdown sweepstakes”
Paul B. Farrell
MarketWatch, November 17, 2009
November 19th, 2009 at 12:19 am
I have a funny idea: how about replace Wall Street and the Federal Reserve. Yes, the whole thing. All of it.
It’s been done before – wholesale replacement. In fact, it was America who made it happen to the deserving countries. It works. Wonderfully.
1945: Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany; 1991 USSR, you fortunate bastards. Now don’t just sit there. Come on over to this sorry land of the Free gone Nuts and help us replace a few things!
November 20th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Thanks for the comment Einstein.
“I have a funny idea: how about replace Wall Street and the Federal Reserve. Yes, the whole thing. All of it.”
“Replacing” the Federal Reserve will be easier than Wall Street. As Jim Rogers likes to point out, U.S. central banks have come and gone inthe past.
That being said, another central bank has always replaced the old one.
As for Wall Street? Something tells me it’s a waning star. Look for a new global financial center to emerge in Asia in the coming years. But my guess is that Wall Street will exist in some form or other in the future— barring some major catastrophe.
November 20th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
I was hoping you find my jest entertaining.
Seriously:
Fed – Cut down to size. Regulatory powers gone. Growth mandate removed, leaving only inflation mandate. Even inflation mandate restricted by laws that specify a narrow range of inflation target. Miss that inflation target and the Fed Chairman will be kicked out. Subject to regular GAO audits. Most audit results will be secret but an audited balance sheet to be made public. Cozy relationship between Fed and banks severely cut. Ownership of Fed brought back under Treasury.
Wall Street – Will get hit on the head with a 4×4. Public wants blood and politicians must get blood. Will be tightly regulated and watched like a idiopathic drunk. Other financial centers are sure to arise as the buck reserve powers wane. Global power plays will decide on the fate of Wall Street.
I have another ‘funny’ feeling in the guts. Tim Geithner will announce resignation in Jan 2010. And not surprised if Bernanke withdraws before confirmation.
November 21st, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Thanks for the comment Einstein.
“I was hoping you find my jest entertaining.”
I did. It’s just your comment started the wheels turning in my head, and I really started to think about the likelihood of actually “replacing” the two— short of foreign intervention.
“I have another ‘funny’ feeling in the guts. Tim Geithner will announce resignation in Jan 2010. And not surprised if Bernanke withdraws before confirmation.”
Geithner I can see. Bernanke. Not sure. He still has quite a few heavy-hitters backing him last I heard. Regrettably, I have visions of him riding the whole she-bang down, kind of like Slim Pickens and that nuclear payload in the movie “Dr. Strangelove.”