This dude predicted the crisis 5 years ago and here's what he had to say a few days ago: ----------
"I believe that stocks are undervalued, but not extremely so. Passive, long-term investors in the S&P 500 can reasonably expect average total returns moderately higher than 10% annually over the next say, 7-10 years ... The misguided policy response from Washington has focused almost exclusively on squandering public money and burdening our children with indebtedness in order to defend the bondholders of mismanaged financial institutions (blame Paulson and Geithner I've got a lot of respect for our President, but he's been sold a load of garbage by banking insiders) ... Simply letting an institution unravel is quite different from taking receivership, protecting the customers, keeping the institution intact, replacing management, properly taking the losses out of stockholder and bondholder capital, and issuing it back into private ownership at a later date. ... Nobody is advocating an uncontrolled unraveling of major financial institutions or permanent nationalization as if we've suddenly become Venezuela. Make no mistake. Buying up troubled assets will not materially ease this crisis, nor will it even improve the capital position of financial institutions. Homeowners will continue to default because their payment obligations have not been restructured to any meaningful extent. We are simply protecting the bondholders of mismanaged financial institutions, even though that bondholder capital is more than sufficient to cover the losses without harm to customers. The course of defending the bondholders of insolvent institutions is not sustainable. Do the math. The collateral behind private market debt is being marked down by easily 20-30%. That debt represents about 3.5 times GDP. That implies collateral losses on the order of 70-100% of GDP, which itself is $14 trillion.... Unless Congress is actually willing to commit that amount of public funds to defend the bondholders of mismanaged financials so they can avoid any loss, this crisis simply cannot be addressed through bailouts. Bondholders have to take losses. Debt has to be restructured (and can be restructured in ways that largely preserve the present value of the obligations). There is no other option [than nationalization] but the markets are going to suffer interminably until our leaders figure that ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:291742 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
