Originally posted by Fang
And I'll be watching the bonfire to with a smile on my face. But I don't buy into this 'Schiff the psychic' stuff. Lots of people saw the writing
on the wall. Greed, self interest and more greed, meant they didn't shout about it. In the UK, I heard on numerous ocaissions from colleagues that
Northern Rock was a house of cards. But while NR was expanding market share, increasing 'shareholders value' and making profits, no one said
anything too loudly.
Oh I don't think he was "psychic" either. And I agree that a lot of people saw it coming and kept quiet, they knew and could milk the system as
much as possible before the SHTF.
But perhaps that leads more into the theory that this was manufactured to allow the few wealthy elite to cash-in?
Nevertheless, he was right in a lot of ways, and gave that information publicly. And I'll bet a lot of those who laughed him off and lost a lot of
money are now thinking about calling him to beg for his advice.
The thing is, most people knew there was a problem, simply because wealth was increasing dramatically, and debt was increasing along with it. But
everyone ignored it because they could suddenly afford a bigger house or a second car.
People have long been living beyond their means, and thinking that it was the norm.
It takes a person with financial foresight to connect the dots and see where this leads. Most people couldn't tell you who gives them the money to
buy that new car, how many others are getting the same deal, and how that translates to other banks and loans in the bigger market.
Even senior bankers probably couldn't have told you how precarious the system was.
Either way, real or not, ideas in the first post are right; financial hardship causes crime figures to rise, social instability and eventually a
backlash against those institutions that (so publicly) caused this mess.
