"Things are going to be awful for everyday people." (8 really, really scary predictions)

[marmar]

from CNN Money:



8 really, really scary predictions
Dow 4,000. Food shortages. A bubble in Treasury notes. Fortune spoke to eight of the market's sharpest thinkers and what they had to say about the future is frightening.

Nouriel Roubini
Known as Dr. Doom, the NYU economics professor saw the mortgage-related meltdown coming.

We are in the middle of a very severe recession that's going to continue through all of 2009 - the worst U.S. recession in the past 50 years. It's the bursting of a huge leveraged-up credit bubble. There's no going back, and there is no bottom to it. It was excessive in everything from subprime to prime, from credit cards to student loans, from corporate bonds to muni bonds. You name it. And it's all reversing right now in a very, very massive way. At this point it's not just a U.S. recession. All of the advanced economies are at the beginning of a hard landing. And emerging markets, beginning with China, are in a severe slowdown. So we're having a global recession and it's becoming worse.

Things are going to be awful for everyday people. U.S. GDP growth is going to be negative through the end of 2009. And the recovery in 2010 and 2011, if there is one, is going to be so weak - with a growth rate of 1% to 1.5% - that it's going to feel like a recession. I see the unemployment rate peaking at around 9% by 2010. The value of homes has already fallen 25%. In my view, home prices are going to fall by another 15% before bottoming out in 2010.

For the next 12 months I would stay away from risky assets. I would stay away from the stock market. I would stay away from commodities. I would stay away from credit, both high-yield and high-grade. I would stay in cash or cashlike instruments such as short-term or longer-term government bonds. It's better to stay in things with low returns rather than to lose 50% of your wealth. You should preserve capital. It'll be hard and challenging enough. I wish I could be more cheerful, but I was right a year ago, and I think I'll be right this year too.


http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0812/gallery.market_gurus.fortune/index.html

[SpiralHawk]

1. Another view with insight...Trending into 2009

Fear mongering helps no one, is just more republiconthink.

Realistic assessment and insight are, for me, preferable to the kind of gut-grabbing fear republicons and their ilk shove at America...

http://www.chiron-communications.com/blog.html

[Dogmudgeon]

2. The article was actually pretty level-headed

It was the headline that was the attention-grabber. The predictions were not necessarily rosy, but there were no invocations of the end of the Grand Mayan Baktun or pole shifts.

We're heading into a pretty serious economic downturn. It's not the end of the world, but it will be pretty bad for a lot of people.

--p!

[SpiralHawk]

3. Lots of people are saying lots of wild things about the Mayan calendar

But from what I know, traditional Maya Daykeepers disapprove of all the wild speculators peddling books with their own 'versions' of the tradition the Maya themselves are entrusted with. What ends, they say, is an era of time. As the old era ends, a new one begins...

[shadowknows69]

4. No guarantee that the new era will include homo sapiens however

[SpiralHawk]

5. "Yikes!" - bipedal primates

[radfringe]

6. my theory on why Mayan calendar ends in 2012

creation of the calendar was privatized by King BUSHaquexel, a no-bid contract handed to halliburtix and they screwed up, next Mayan ruler canceled the project

[shadowknows69]

7. Lol. DUzy nom!!!

[SpiralHawk]

8. And the Latter-day MayaCons counted up Massive Prophet Profits, smirking surreptitiously

"Respice, adspice, prospice."

(Examine the past, examine the present, examine the future."