

What my money manager sent to explain this crash is not 2008--believe him? - jasonmcalacanis
https://plus.google.com/103716847685048716973/posts/X1Wu22bVMMu

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anigbrowl
(references
[http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190414060...](http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904140604576496241939456906.html))

Well, that's why the crash isn't like 2008, but you could have found that out
for yourself - I question the value of a financial adviser that just retweets
the WSJ. I'm willing to provide that service for only 50% of what s/he charges
you :-)

Here's the basic problem: governments are spent up as the article says, but
some corporations are in a good position because they've been able to clean up
in the aftermath of the previous crisis thanks to an easygoing regulatory
environment, rather than because of any innate brilliance or rock-solid
fundamentals. Global markets can push individual governments and central banks
around, but they're probably not able to stand up to coordinated political
action. That could take the form of imposing severe haircut on treasury
bondholders as happened with Greece recently, or some radical reform of legal
regimes - a global corporate tax treaty, for example. Central banks in
emerging markets that have large AAA holdings don't enjoy this sort of
instability either; there could be a sudden consensus to level the regulatory
playing field and compete on monetary policy (for example).

You could get out of paper altogether and take refuge in gold, but it's not
like that market is immune to meddling either. Or just pick the least
leveraged companies with the least exotic business models and corporate
structures, and hope that their fundamentals and lack of politicking brings
them through unscathed. I have no idea what the 'right' investment strategy
is, but given the global scope of the problem, my bet would be on a global
financial summit followed by some new Bretton Woods type consensus:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system>

------
benmccann
Counter-point by two-time Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz:
[http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/stiglitz-
conside...](http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/stiglitz-considerable-
risk-banks-today-because-little-changed-151748128.html)

