When the US sneezes the world catches cold
The outlook as you have guessed is not good. I have been waiting for this crash since mid 2006 and what kept it from happening was what Greenspan called the “irrational exuberance” of the investors. The market, especially the US markets, will plunge further. I see Dow Jones below 11500 and Nasdaq at 1900. The full picture of financial crisis is still hidden and full cost of the coming bailouts will not be known till autumn.
Of course this is not written in stone. The US government may come to its senses and decides to act responsibly and allow many companies and banks to go under. It may try to support dollar. It may try to cut the budget deficit or the trade deficit. It may even decide that its war in Iraq was not and is not such a good idea and withdraw its troops. It may even try to get friendly with Venezuela and Iran, thereby reduce both the price of oil and pressure on the dollar. The truth is that it is the US president that can do these things and not the Federal Reserves. We just have to wait for the elections and see who is elected as the next president.
It is my opinion that no other US president has ever damaged United States as much as George Bush, and he will be remembered by both the Americans and others as one of the most unpopular US presidents ever. But he is at the end of his second term and has only a year to destroy the rest of the economy. Let us hope that he will be busy with other things and doesn’t do more damage. Let us also hope that the American people will not fall for promises of further tax cuts and glories in battle fields abroad. Neither brings peace and prosperity.
By Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar
Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar lives in Norway. He is a management consultant and a contributing writer for many online journals. He can be contacted by e-mail at: Bakhtiarspace-articles@yahoo.no
Copyright Abbas Bakhtiar, all rights reserved.
