Paul B. Farrell: 10 reasons Wall Street will hit bottom, crash

[marmar]

10 reasons Wall Street will hit bottom, crash
Commentary: Gambling-addicted banks need a Betty Ford Center

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch


SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Yes, Wall Street will crash. Has to. They’re gambling addicts. Dodged the bullet in 2008. But learned nothing. Now killing reforms. Teamed up with the Super Rich, CEOs, lobbyists, and crony politicians. It’s only a matter of time.

Yes, they’ll crash, again. No matter how anemic the recovery. No matter how much more debt they pile on taxpayers. No matter who’s president. Crash.

How do I know Wall Street will hit bottom? First off, most American know somebody who’s trapped in addictive behavior. I got a front-row seat years ago as a professional helping a few hundred addicts, alcoholics and gamblers getting help from the Betty Ford Center and others like it.

Guess what: Wall Street’s behavior is exactly like all other addicts, trapped in denial, they’ll risk destroying family, friends, health, careers and even America before stopping. They’re obsessed, hooked, blind, addicted to gambling. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-reasons-wall-street-will-hit-bottom-crash-2012-03-13

[xchrom]

1. Du rec. Nt

[Rex]

2. I wish someone would stop the madness first.

When it came out that certain groups were beting on death and destruction in the PNAC crowd (Afghanistan), I knew we were fucked just a matter of time. Sad that we only have police to control the working poor. We need police that do nothing all day but arrest the criminally rich bastards that foreclosed illegally on homes of the working poor. Arrest ponzie schemers and don banksters...what a dream.

Wonder what that unit would be called?

[pnwmom]

3. And if this crash occurs before the election, even Santorum or Gingrich could win.

Anyone who isn't Obama could win.

[Turbineguy]

5. Well, a crash

before the election would save the repubs the trouble.

[JoePhilly]

4. Why doesn't the author tell us how big the "crash" will be?

Would a pull-back to 11k be a "crash"??

The article says "soon" ... well, how soon??

[Speck Tater]

6. The reason he doesn't say how big, or how soon is...

Nobody knows. Nobody CAN know. It's like predicting earthquakes. You know damn well one "the big one" is going to hit Los Angeles, and you know it will probably be in the next 100 years, but it could be tomorrow, or it could be 50 years from now.

The same with the crash. Anybody can see it coming. The signs are crystal clear and have been for a decade or more. It's likely to be very big, but maybe not all at once. It might be 5 or 10 crashes over the course of 5 or 10 years, or it might be one monstrous crash that happens this afternoon at 1:37 PM.

My guess is that it will leave western civilization if ruins, whether that happens over a decade or in the course of a single afternoon, nobody can know. My guess is that electricity and running water will be a memory. My guess is that the recovery, when it starts happening, will be built around family farms, local manufacturing, and limited world trade via sailing ships.

[Zalatix]

9. It'll probably leave the world in ruins, not just the West. China will fall.

Between their catastrophic and accelerating environmental damage and the loss of the Western market if we collapse, China (and then all of Asia) will collapse. Utterly. There may not even be many Chinese left. India will take a similar headshot because of their environmental issues and dependency on exports to the West.

The worst part? You'd better HOPE for a total collapse. The alternative is that we will all live in a feudal state. See: Hunger Games. That's even worse than what you're predicting.

[newspeak]

33. so, if the crash is attributed to the junkies?

can the people in the world knock on wall street's door with noose in hand? Or will the corporate media attempt to point the finger (as they're very good at protecting their own) at something or someone else?

Maybe the media can catapult the propaganda and get the people to believe, it's regulation that's caused all the problems. Yeah, that's it-too much regulation.

[Zalatix]

34. Won't matter. In a collapse it's everyone for themselves.

A total collapse means the inability to effectively marshal the troops and police gangs.

This goes badly for everyone but even moreso for the rich, who have alienated everyone around them.

[JoePhilly]

10. SO when the world ends, does the dow drop to 11,000? or below 6500?

To have ANY value, a prediction must make some specific and observable outcomes.

This prediction doesn't have any.

Which is why they also say that you can't predict earth quakes ... sure, they happen, but if you can't predict them other than to say "it will happen" ... its useless.

[Demeter]

11. Most likely, the market ceases, period

Who will want to buy useless paper? Who will want dollars? A crash of that magnitude wipes out paper assets of all kinds--with the possible exception of deeds to real estate, although the fraudclosure has invalidated most of those, too.

[Nye Bevan]

16. A claim on Apple's profits in perpuity is "useless paper"? nt

[JoePhilly]

20. So you mean Road Warrior kind of stuff huh?

[Zalatix]

35. If we're lucky. If the rich win, it'll be more like Zardoz.

[JoePhilly]

37. We are at least 200 years from that.

And we haven't even reached 1984 yet.

[dionysus]

21. we'll be makin a living growing turnips, i tell ya!

[sudopod]

28. edit: never mind. nt

[cherokeeprogressive]

39. Because the author doesn't know...

It's just a puff piece. I expected to see numbers telling me why the stock market would crash again and all the author has to offer is...

The "king baby" syndrome?

"Macho macho"? What the fuck?

It's just opinion.

[cbdo2007]

7. Um....no shit sherlock. It's cyclical, so of course it's bound to crash again.

But we'll hit 15,000 first and it probably wont' happen for another 12 years.

[pansypoo53219]

8. BUTBUTBUT it wasn't THEIR fault! it was the poor!!!

that's what fux gnews said, so it MUST be TRU!!!!

[IcyPeas]

12. what to do with my 401k?

[lark]

14. Cash out and move to another country?

That's what we plan to do when my very elderly mom isn't with us anymore.

[cbdo2007]

18. when do you plan to retire???

Next crash shouldn't be for another 12 years or so and even then it should be a good time to average down, so I wouldn't throw in the towel just yet.

[JoePhilly]

31. That depends ....

On when you will need it.

The person telling you to cash out, is nuts, in part because they have no idea what your time frame is. Plus, if you are not yet at retirement age, you'd pay a HUGE penalty.

If you are VERY close to retirement, then you should start to SHIFT your 401k investments to extremely safe investments that are also available in your 401k plan. The DOW is UP currently, and so if you think you need the money in the next few years, you need to lock in some gains because even if the DOW goes up, you only lose "opportunity", not money you already have.

If your time horizon is more than say 10 years, you have plenty of time. The Dow is UP, and so you might want to shift a portion to safe investments, maybe move some to investments that are DOWN currently, but there is no reason to cash out.

\

[banned from Kos]

13. No way. Stocks are CHEAP from a historical perspective

12x 2012 earnings... very cheap.

UNLESS there is a catastrophic global warming season. That would change things.

[JackRiddler]

15. Case in point.

[banned from Kos]

17. you are hoping for a crash while I am not

Look what the 2008 crash did to us.

Another crash would be a disaster for any reason. And no, there won't be some socialist Utopia that would spring out of it.

[JackRiddler]

23. You are engaging in wish-thinking with respect to capitalism.

Surely a big trader like you doesn't put stock in what I "hope." Surely you don't think what you imagine I hope affects real-world events.

What I observe, however, and what I expect, are based in the reality that capitalism necessarily generates crises and crashes, and will continue to do so as long as the allocation of capital is done through markets.

Certainly the 2007 crash (when it actually began) did not catch me by surprise, and there's nothing special about me. Anyone without the special pro-capitalist blinders could see what was coming, and why, and hundreds of real economists (the kind who don't peddle their asses for Wall Street) said what was coming, and why.

And it didn't matter to the mainstream of economists, who are bought and paid for by Wall Street and capitalism; they work as corporate consultants and PR whores, and only play at being academics in their day jobs.

My hopes in this matter will make no difference. It's very much a material reality; belief in eternal growth is hubris.

[Zalatix]

36. Ever read about life under feudalism?

The world is going to return to that if we DON'T have a total crash.

[Nye Bevan]

19. On May 25, 2010, you posted "Warning: Crash dead ahead. Sell. Get liquid. Now."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=538018&mesg_id=538018

On that day the Dow closed at 10,044.

Right now, the Dow is 13,129.

I am very glad that I ignored your "warning".

[dionysus]

22. oh shit, you just embarrassed nostradamus over here...

[Nye Bevan]

24. Here's another one: "2008 crash deja vu: We’ll relive it, and soon", posted on April 26, 2011

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x87415

The Dow closed at 12,595 that day.
Today the Dow closed at 13,178.

How soon is "soon"?

[JoePhilly]

26. The end of the world folks have decided that ...

they can be wrong 1000 times, just so long as they are right ONCE at some unspecified point in time in the future.

Here on DU, each summer under the Obama admin, has brought out the DU predictions of a "double-dip" ... there is an end of the world parade, at the end of which, when nothing happens, there is a whimper ... and then a pause, before the next round of "OMG, its the end of the world!!!!" start again.

Predictions of the economy, particularly the bullish ones on DU, rarely come to fruition.

If the DOW falls 200 points on a given day, THAT becomes a clear indication that the end of the world has come ... when it goes back up, well ... the DOW stops being a relevant indicator of the economy for these folks.

[cherokeeprogressive]

40. This reminds me of why "The Rain Dance" always, ALWAYS works.

The Indians don't stop dancing UNTIL it rains.

[dionysus]

32. 4 years is the blink of an eye, in the grand scale of time ;)

[MineralMan]

25. Paul B. Farrell is an absolute nutcase.

Conspiracy theorist and all that.

Want evidence. Just Google Paul B. Farrell Nutcase. It's out there. He's out there. The truth is out there. Wheeeeeeeeee.....

[Nye Bevan]

27. "Paul B. Farrell: Our decade from hell will get worse in 2012" (from Dec 13, 2011)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/100211133

The Dow closed at 11,955 that day.
The Dow closed at 13,178 today.

OK. That's enough piscine gunshot casualties in my barrel for today.

[50000feet]

41. Whenever I see someone calling anybody a "conspiracy theorist",

I understand they are regurgitating right-wing propaganda so old, it should be mummified and displayed as an exhibit in a CIA psy-ops museum.

DU's own Octafish has done great work debunking this pernicious old canard.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=757860&mesg_id=762001

[50000feet]

47. Far from being a nutcase, Paul Farrell is one of the more respectable

financial columnists out there in corporate medialand.

I did Google his name (without the 'nutcase' following it) and came up with a very interesting piece he wrote in Aug. 2010. The article must have caused a lot of bobble heads to explode.

http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=116866

Reagan insider: GOP destroyed economy
by Paul B. Farrell

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- "How my G.O.P. destroyed the U.S. economy." Yes, that is exactly what David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan's director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, "Four Deformations of the Apocalypse."

Get it? Not "destroying." The GOP has already "destroyed" the U.S. economy, setting up an "American Apocalypse."

Yes, Stockman is equally damning of the Democrats' Keynesian policies. But what this indictment by a party insider -- someone so close to the development of the Reaganomics ideology -- says about America, helps all of us better understand how America's toxic partisan-politics "holy war" is destroying not just the economy and capitalism, but the America dream. And unless this war stops soon, both parties will succeed in their collective death wish.

But why focus on Stockman's message? It's already lost in the 24/7 news cycle. Why? We need some introspection. Ask yourself: How did the great nation of America lose its moral compass and drift so far off course, to where our very survival is threatened?

We've arrived at a historic turning point as a nation that no longer needs outside enemies to destroy us, we are committing suicide. Democracy. Capitalism. The American dream. All dying. Why? Because of the economic decisions of the GOP the past 40 years, says this leading Reagan Republican.

More: http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=116866

[onenote]

29. Can I play too? Here's one predicting a crash by Christmas 2011

http://articles.marketwatch.com/2011-02-22/commentary/30765731_1_human-brain-memory-system-con-game

I've said it before and I'll say it again: anyone who bases their investment decisions on what they read on DU is an idiot.

on edit: I remember when this article was posted on DU. Unfortunately I don't know how to search the archives on new DU. Can someone give me quick tutorial?

[Drunken Irishman]

30. This guy is the Harold Camping of the stock market...

Make enough predictions and, I guess, sooner or later, you're bound to be right.

[bhikkhu]

38. To be followed by: 10 Reasons the Stock Market Will Recover, Again. n/t

[L0oniX]

42. Bill Moyers ...watch the videos if you really care about the truth.

http://billmoyers.com/episode/encore-broadcast-crony-capitalism/

David Stockman on Crony Capitalism
Encore Broadcast: Crony Capitalism
Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson on Engineered Inequality
Full Show: How Do Conservatives and Liberals See the World?
Encore Broadcast: On Winner-Take-All Politics

[Kaleko]

43. The global financial system is bound to crash in the foreseeable future

because it is unsustainable. There are many reasons why the entire system has become unsustainable. Much has been written about it from various angles, but one little detail has escaped the attention it deserves: Major investment banks have deliberately recruited social psychopaths to run the freaking show!

Get a load of this abbreviated version of the Independent UK article and watch a video of Dick Fuld. He is the former CEO of Lehman Brothers and the architect of its downfall. Fuld snarled to Lehman staff that he wanted to “rip out their (his competitors) hearts and eat them before they died”. So how did someone like Mr. Fuld get to the top of Lehman?

...In Jon Ronson’s widely acclaimed book The Psychopath Test, Professor Robert Hare told the author: “I should have spent some time inside the Stock Exchange as well. Serial killer psychopaths ruin families. Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies. They ruin societies.”

Cut to a pleasantly warm evening in Bahrain. My companion, a senior UK investment banker and I, are discussing the most successful banking types we know and what makes them tick. I argue that they often conform to the characteristics displayed by social psychopaths. To my surprise, my friend agrees.

He then makes an astonishing confession: “At one major investment bank for which I worked, we used psychometric testing to recruit social psychopaths because their characteristics exactly suited them to senior corporate finance roles.”

Here was one of the biggest investment banks in the world seeking psychopaths as recruits.

http://www.ianfraser.org/the-rise-of-the-corporate-pyschopath/

[50000feet]

44. !!!

[woo me with science]

45. Wars will speed the process by bankrupting countries

and causing devastation.

The MIC does not just make billions for the one percent through purchase of weaponry. Every single time there is war, we move in and restructure countries and economies for the benefit of the one percent.

There's another big collapse coming soon, I agree.

[Kaleko]

46. George Soros, a guy who knows a thing or two about finances,

likens the imminent financial threats to Europe and the United States to that of the dying days of the Soviet regime.


“Something similar is happening in the West,” Mr. Soros told Bloomberg Television. “You had a financial crisis where the market did actually collapse, but it was kept alive by the authorities. People don’t realize that the system has actually collapsed.”