How bad was it?

Here is a great talk by one who very clearly knows.... watch this MIT video.

Financial Services: Prospects for Your Future

September 24, 2009

In a lively discussion with Simon Johnson, Lawrence Fish deconstructs the near collapse of the banking system and points out the multiple factors that have contributed to the financial crisis.

SPEAKERS

Lawrence K. Fish

Former Chairman and CEO, Citizens Financial Group

We may see a great depression the likes never before felt and other upheavals.

In March 2006 I predicted "We may see a great depression the likes never before felt and other upheavals." It was this feeling that made me pack up in September 2004 and leave the US for Japan. They had had their "adjustment" in 1990 and are one of the few countries making money of China. People in Japan, particularity my students, ask me will it get any worse than what we have seen. AIGs near collapse, the global collapse of core banking and financial groups. Iceland was hit hard so was England's Banking. GM fall is equivalent to many as a literal symbol of the decline of the US. Equivalent in many respects to that of Coca Cola going under. Can you imagine Coke folding... The dollar has already significantly adjusted... but has it adjusted enough? Probably not. It saddens me to think of all those GM employees and other that lost everything and it angers me more that the leadership can get away with starting up a new company backed by the US government... US Tax money! In japan the CEO and many of its top executives board members would have probably killed themselves for their failure to the company and its stakeholders. Im serious. So yes, we will see more turmoil and upheaval as the US currency get further devalued when we lose OPEC. The glorious gluttonous days in the US are over... the reality check is sinking in as we are forced on a energy consumption diet.

BRIC alliance formed....

Brazil, Russia, India and China have united to oppose US position as the global superpower read about it here:BRIC artical link

As I predicted some time back, they will work together to delist the dollar as the primary global currency.

America stumbles and markets shake and collapse. The recent economic banking disaster is yet more writing on the wall for the ensuing collapse of America over the next 20 years.