- 在国内听小道消息,从动车事故到王立军 (ZT) [2012/05]
- 对八九六四的认真反思,一不得不读的好文 (ZT) [2013/06]
- 昨天说他是"奴才",今更正为"洋奴才" [2010/07]
- 中国不应该计划生育吗? by 米笑 [2011/12]
- 林书豪事件后,哪些华人反应过激 (ZT) [2012/02]
- 也谈6.4,支持小平 [2009/05]
- 美国公司文化体验之一 (记我的两个70后同事) [2009/05]
- 看看美国公校里怎样教乘法 [2009/02]
- 新中国风风雨雨走过61年,值此大喜的日子,作为海外华人,今天来"酸葡萄"一下 [2010/10]
- 质疑[一个统一过中国的领导人,肯定不是人民的公敌。] [2010/04]
- 华人是白人还是黑人?美国最高法院回答你 (ZT) [2011/04]
- 智取小偷--驾校里的故事 [2009/05]
- 周燕霞是政客吗? [2009/03]
- 一转身,交了个朋友;再一转身,又交了个朋友,还得了份工作 [2009/04]
- 母亲的诗 [2009/03]
- 村里建了“忠烈祠” [2009/03]
- 我的兄弟姐妹 [2009/04]
- 儿时回忆--斗风筝 [2009/02]
- 爆破班上课了 [2009/04]
- 大蛇的传说 [2009/05]
- 文革中的母亲 [2009/05]
这小子还挺能写,昨天面世的[10 Doomsday trends America can’t survive] 是他的第10本书。
"The Millionaire Code"
"The Winning Portfolio"
"The Lazy Person's Guide to Investing"
"Super-Rich CEOs are killing your retirement"
"Tax the Super Rich now or face a revolution"
。。。。。。
After our bankrupt Wall Street was resurrected in 2008 — thanks to their Trojan Horse, an ex-Goldman CEO inside the Treasury conning trillions from a clueless Congress — it became obvious that capitalism is killing America’s soul. Nobody trusts government. And no matter who’s elected, wealth, Wall Street and the Super Rich rule America; total collapse is coming.
Why? Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, said it best: “There is a war going on in this country … the war waged by the wealthiest people in America on the disappearing and shrinking middle class of our country. The nation’s billionaires are on the warpath. They want more, more, more. Their greed has no end and they are apparently unconcerned for the future of this country if it gets in the way of their accumulation of power and wealth.”
Stop kidding yourself, democracy is dead: “All men are created equal” is a quaint political fiction. The public has no real say in a nation where wealth buys votes, a naive public is easily manipulated and elected officials have a price.
In “The Battle for Soul of Capitalism,” Bogle warned us the “Invisible Hand” no longer serves “We the People” nor the public welfare. Today, Wall Street and the insatiable Super Rich 1% rule America. And they are obsessed with restoring the same unregulated free-market Reaganomics that loves gambling in the same speculative $580 trillion derivatives casino that triggered the 2008 meltdown.
The Super Rich have always had some hand in America’s destiny, operating from the shadows. Today, this conspiracy of Wall Street, Corporate CEOs, politicians and Forbes 400 billionaires operates openly, with absolute power and an arrogance that is corrupting the nation’s soul, their souls, your soul. This conspiracy has no moral compass , yet ironically, is legal.
Why? Wealth can easily buy favorable laws, making even the most unethical, selfish, corrupt behavior legal by fiat. And their high-priced lobbyists all over Washington, Congress, government regulatory agencies and the Fed all have the power to grab the rewards of capitalism for the Super Rich, while transferring the liabilities to the other, clueless 99% of America’s taxpayers
Forget buzzwords like oligopoly, plutocracy, socialism. Today Washington is a pure anarchy, a game played by tens of thousands of high-priced lobbyists squeezing the best deals out of America’s budget, solely for their clients’ interests, never the general public. Our economy is a monopoly of Super-Rich Anarchists. They know the only votes that count are in Congress. And they’re for sale.
Lobbyists are “brokers.” Today there are 261,000 lobbyists brokering special interests, all fighting for the maximum possible slice of a $1.5 trillion federal budget pie — special regulations, exemptions, loans, tax loopholes, earmarks, access, agency appointments, defense contracts, you name it — endless gambits that further consolidate the power and wealth at the top for Super-Rich Donors.
The principle of grow or die, once a given in economics and politics, is being challenged by new “growth and die” research, while a bizarre numbers racket is used by economists as propaganda to hide the truth, manipulating investors, consumers, voters, the public.
All economists tend to be biased, work for banks, politicians, corporate CEOs, think tanks and the Fed, all with political agendas. They’re more speech writers, supporting partisan slogans like “drill baby drill,” ignoring long-term consequences. For example, global population will increase 50% by 2050, yet old-school economists keep pretending natural resources are infinite.
Back in 2002 behavioral science offered investors hope: Psychologist Daniel Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics, exposing Wall Street’s myth of the “rational investor.” Their promise: We’ll help you understand your brain, make better decisions. You’ll be “less irrational,” control your brain, be a successful investor.
Wrong. That will never happen. Why? Because your brain will always be irrational. Worse, Wall Street quants are always light-years ahead of our home-school brain rewiring; they know you’re vulnerable, easy to manipulate. They also hire the top neuroscientists for their casinos. No wonder the house always wins.
Sophisticated new technologies, mathematical algorithms and neuroscience all guarantee Wall Street insiders huge margins gambling in their derivative casinos, leveraging deposits from Main Street’s “dumb money.” Today Wall Street is even more obsessed, grabbing for high-risk profits in a tough “new normal” of high volatility, increasing risks, lower returns.
Average investors are no match for Wall Street’s high-frequency traders who easily win by huge margins on this rigged playing field. Still, naive Main Street investors keep betting despite warnings that the more you trade the less you earn.
The Pentagon predicts that by 2020 “warfare will define human life” as global population explodes 50% to 10 billion in 2050. Powerful commercial, political and ideological forces drive globalization. Emerging nations compete for scarce resources. This is “the mother of all national security issues,” warns the Pentagon.
“Unrest would then create massive droughts, turning farmland into dust bowls and forests to ashes. Rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, they may be pushing the climate to a tipping point. By 2020 there is little doubt that something drastic is happening. As the planet’s carrying capacity shrinks an ancient pattern reemerges: the eruption of desperate, all-out wars over food, water and energy supplies and warfare defining human life.”
Bubble/bust cycles have been well documented for eight centuries. But the lessons of history are never learned. Euphoria blinds us in boom times. We deny risk. Bubbles blow. Meltdowns happen. We will always recover.
Wrong. Many now challenge that naive assumption. Financial historian Niall Ferguson comments in his “Rise and Fall of the American Empire:” “Collapse may come much more suddenly than many historians imagine. Fiscal deficits and military overstretch suggests that the United States may be the next empire on the precipice. Many nations in history, at the very peak of their power, affluence and glory, see leaders arise, run amok with imperial visions and sabotage themselves, their people and their nation.”
Former Morgan Stanley guru and hedge fund manager Barton Biggs, offers his Super-Rich Investors a doomsday strategy in his “Wealth, War and Wisdom.” He warns of “the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure.” No hippie radical, he says “think Swiss Family Robinson, your safe haven must be self-sufficient, capable of growing food, well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes. And be ready to fire a few rounds over the approaching brigands’ heads, to persuade them there are easier farms to pillage.”
But will that work for Main Street investors in the next meltdown/depression? Read our 12 tips and six worst-case scenario rules for average investors preparing for the doomsday scenario.