How to invest for a global-debt-bomb explosion

Paul B. Farrell

Feb. 9, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EST · Recommend (61) · Post:

How to invest for a global-debt-bomb explosion
Prepare for an apocalyptic anarchy ending Wall Street's toxic capitalismView all Paul B. Farrell ›
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Our debt time bomb is ready to go ka-boom
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Robin Hood and Goldman Sachs, the movie
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Comments Screener (794) Alert Email Print ShareBy Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Wake up investors. Are you prepared for the economic anarchy coming after a global-debt time bomb explodes? Are you thinking outside the box? Investing differently? Act now -- tomorrow will be too late.

Start by looking past the endless cable skirmishes between Rush, Glenn, Bill and Shawn versus Harry, Nancy, Ben and Barack. Look way past the insurgency bonding Sarah and her diehard Tea Party revolutionaries with Ron Paul's Neo-Reaganite ideologues, Fat-Cat Bankers and the Party of No, all planning a massive frontal assault on the 2010 elections, hell-bent on destroying the presidency. All that's the sideshow.


Europe's debt woes won't recedeEuropean stocks managed to look somewhere other than Greece, Spain and Portugal early Monday, but don't bet on that lasting.
The Big One is coming soon, bigger than the 2000 dot-com crash and the 2008 subprime credit meltdown combined. A huge market blowout. And as Bloomberg-BusinessWeek predicts: "The results won't be pretty for investors or elected officials."

After the global-debt bomb explodes don't expect a typical bear correction followed by a new bull. Wall Street's toxic pseudo-capitalism is imploding. Be prepared for a massive meltdown. Yes, already the third major bubble-bust of the 21st century, triggered once again by Wall Street's out-of-control Fat Cat Bankers. And it's dead ahead.

Can your family survive in the anarchy after the debt bomb explodes?
America's already descending into economic anarchy. We're all trapped in a historic economic supercycle, a turning point that must bleed through a no-man's land of lawless self-destructive anarchy before a neo-capitalistic world can re-emerge. Investors tell me they "feel" it at a deep level, "know" it's happening. They keep asking: "What's the best investment strategy to prepare now?"

This is no joke, folks. Are you prepared? Or preparing? Will your family survive in a post-apocalyptic world, when anarchy is rampant in America? Look at Washington, Wall Street and Corporate America today. You know it's already begun.

You are witnessing a fundamental breakdown of the American dream, a systemic breakdown of our democracy and our capitalism, a breakdown driven by the blind insatiable greed of Wall Street: Dysfunctional government, insane markets, economy on the brink. Multiply that many times over and see a world in total disarray. Ignore it now, tomorrow will be too late.

Not a war about ideology, but an economic game-changer
This is a war to control 299 million American taxpayers. A war waged by the "Happy Conspiracy" Jack Bogle profiled in his 2004 "Battle for the Soul of Capitalism," a war machine of Fat Cat Bankers, CEOs, 42,000 mercenary lobbyists and a Congress held hostage to unlimited campaign donations. Their conspiracy has been waging this war against Americans for decades, long before the Supreme Court exposed their dirty secret.

Yes, your enemy is that "Happy Conspiracy:" It has degraded into a pseudo-capitalism with no conscience, no sense of the public good, hell-bent on controlling America's mind, your money and the global markets for its own selfish ends. And eventually it will trigger the game-changing global-debt bomb, the third global meltdown of the century that finally ignites the Great Depression II, plunging us into an era of anarchy.

Investors keep asking: "If it is coming, how do I invest? Buy gold? Commodities? Hedge? Short trading? TIPS? Hoard cash? Buy and hold? Lazy Portfolios?" What if the Dow sinks below 5,000? Maybe the worst-case scenario recently predicted by Bob Prechter: A deeper plunge to the 1,000 range? Imagine a global depression, a bear market dragging on for decades: "How do I protect my family? Can I ever retire? What do I invest in? How can anyone prepare?"

How America's two classes are preparing for a descent into anarchy
As America descends into anarchy your family's survival and your ability to retire will depend on which of America's two economic classes you belong to out of our total of roughly 300 million citizens:

1."Average Joe & Jane" Americans: You're one of 299 million Main Street Americans. Average income is $50,000, only 10% of the average bonuses paid to Wall Street's Fat-Cat Bankers. Or you're already one of America's 20% underemployed ... maybe on food stamps ... maybe among the 47 million with no medical insurance ... your retirement assets are about $50,000, a year's survival. And you are "mad-as-hell" you're not working "inside" the "Happy Conspiracy."

2."Happy Conspiracy" Insiders: You're one of the lucky million or so elite Insiders in the "Happy Conspiracy." You may work for a Fat-Cat Bank that American taxpayers bailed out last year so you pocketed a 2009 bonus gift of somewhere between $600,000 and $10 million. Maybe you're a Corporate American CEO. Maybe you're on the Forbes 400 list. Or you're a U.S. Senator.


By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
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Here's how these savvy Insiders are preparing: In his 2008 best-seller, "Wealth, War and Wisdom," hedge fund manager Barton Biggs, a highly respected Insider in the "Happy Conspiracy," advised rich insiders to expect the "possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure."

His advice: Make tons of money. Buy an isolated farm in the mountains. Protect family against the barbarians: "Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food ... It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson."

How Wall Street insiders will treat Main Street in 'The Anarchy'
And when the barbarians do come, firing "a few rounds over the approaching brigands' heads would probably be a compelling persuader that there are easier farms to pillage." Imagine a scene like Port-au-Prince after the quake. Biggs is no radical anarchist, he's an establishment Insider, a great guy. We both arrived at Morgan Stanley about the same time. Biggs remained 30 years, was Morgan's chief global strategist. Ten times Institutional Investor magazine put him on Wall Street's "All-America Research Team."

True, he did hedge his prediction of the coming anarchy. His odds: 1 in 10. But in an early 2009 Newsweek article, "A Generation of Destruction: Throwing money at the problem and propping up greedy banks is like trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it," Biggs teased us with a bleak scenario: "Great cycles of wealth creation have usually lasted about two generations, or 60 years. Inevitably, unequal riches corrupt and create envy, and they are always followed by a generation of enormous wealth destruction."

Warning: By vastly understating the risks while his Insiders prepare for the coming anarchy, Biggs is quietly misleading and disarming the rest of America.

The truth is Insiders in the "Happy Conspiracy" elite will follow Biggs' ultra-simple investment strategy: Make massive amounts of money fast using short-term strategies, spout lip service about the "public good." But always act in your own self-interests first, preparing for when anarchy spreads worldwide in an economic pandemic.

How can America's 299 million 'second-class citizens' invest for anarchy?
So what can the average Joe and Jane, the other 299 million Americans do? Warning: In anarchy, nobody knows. Period. The only possible strategy: "Think Swiss Family Robinson." Stockpile like a "Happy Conspiracy Insider."

Many still challenge us about proven strategies like buy and hold, Modern Portfolio Theory, Lazy Portfolios. Unfortunately, they all need a real democracy driven by honest, transparent capitalism to function effectively. They can't function in anarchy.

And Wall Street's already lapsed into a toxic pseudo-capitalism, using it to manipulate Main Street America. Eventually that mindset will force Main Street Americans to misuse the same dark "Swiss Family Robinson" tactics as the Insiders in order to survive the coming anarchy.

What's our alternative? A new American Revolution
But wait, wait, I hear you asking loudly: There must be an alternative to this dark descent into anarchy, to the loss of everything that made America the greatest nation in history?

Yes there is an alternative. Out of the ashes of anarchy must come a Second American Revolution. But unfortunately nothing will happen until a great crisis awakens America ... shocks the conscience of the masses ... we are "asleep" ... only a seismic, systemic shock will trigger the necessary revolution.

The future of our economy and indeed our nation demands another political revolution. We must take back our democracy and capitalism from a government run by Wall Street and its "Happy Conspiracy" ... their toxic self-serving power hold must be broken and, if not, a rising new conspiracy of China, India, oil-sovereignties and asset-rich nations will replace our homegrown "Happy Conspiracy" as it eventually goes down in the flames of anarchy.

Sadly, that's the future many of us realists see ahead for America.