Comments on: The Man Who Saw This Coming

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:47:09 +0000

I am currently reading Mr Ferguson’s “Ascent of Money”, and recommend it. The Stock Market is dicey, always has been and always will be. My grandfather borrowed money once, during the 1930s, $5,000, to buy a farm and paid it off in 2 years. Through extremely hard work, as a hog farmer, and selling railroead ties he cut himself. My point is, it always comes down to hard work, no matter who you are. The meteoric rise of stocks began most recently in March 2003, after the refis, and preceded the invasion of Iraq. Many saw the collapse coming, and began selling between 11,000 and 12,000; or sooner. Not talking conspiracy, but go look at the history. Truth though: Current Administration policies, along with wall street, is when all this happened, and it’s not over. It will end during the next 4 years hopefully. I don’t care who gets the credit. Get out of debt as soon as you can, and spend as little as little as possible. Then worry about investing. Then your Grandkids will have something.

By: Idiot knew it

Idiot knew it — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 05:07:21 +0000

I really question those FBN pundits about their professionalism. This Alexis, you can see that she just worries her home price so terribly in the show.

By: Nick Ruisi

Nick Ruisi — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:49:46 +0000

Alexis,
Most people with common sense in thier skulls saw this coming at least 18 months ago.

By: Glen Pierce

Glen Pierce — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 21:03:50 +0000

I am serious when i say that a relative in Calif and NC were selling mortgages from their real basement office in their home. Such that 1 relative bought an expensive Hummer at one point. Their mortgages were then given to their main source company, who then bundled them up. And the Feds approved of practices?

By: Glen Pierce

Glen Pierce — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:25:05 +0000

Niall said this in 2007 ? I said this around 2000 when my mother told me about two relatives who had a bsasement business selling mortgages. Their former jobs had no connection. So I figured, There must be more people doing the same. And I doubted such basement abilities to give proper mortages. I told Mom, this will have a huge ripple affect thru the economy. I predicted that the huge home price increases will plummet. They finally did so. You know the rest of the story now. This was not a very hard thing to forecast. I have a simple MBA and figured it out 8 years ago. I don’t dabble in the :casino: stock market. I remember listening to Greenspann around 2005 referring to the possible “bubble” Even Greenspann knew it but did little about it. He failed us. They could have called me and we could have traced my 2 cousins activities right back to their bosses (big financial companies that you know hear about failing). Botton line is “nothing is for free”. This was a huge pyramid scheme from the beginning. We need to figure out how to stop this from happening again. We have to stop the get rich fast people and the one;s who sell “methods” to buying foreclosed properties too. The realtors won this round. The Fed and related agencies were either asleep at the wheel or were enjoying the benefits.

By: Dr. Ronald W. Cutburth

Dr. Ronald W. Cutburth — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:37:22 +0000

So the democrate party plan to press fanie and redie to give massive amounts of subprime loans to people who can’t even pay for them caused the entire problem.
The packaging of subprime loan batches and selling them as having good value sent the diease throughout the economy.
The democrat claim that Bush did it was fraud. So now we have a growing disease that will not be solved because the people who started the problem put themselves into more power to continue the problem.

By: Tim S

Tim S — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 13:04:52 +0000

Alexis,

That was a very informative and riveting interview. While I doubt he is the only one to predict this meltdown, he certainly is the most coherent I’ve heard so far. I love historians.

It occurs to me that we are in the financial equivalent of flood “management.” The first day of my Hydrology course, the professor walked in and wrote two rules on the chalk board. 1. Rivers flood. 2. There’s nothing man can do to prevent it. He then spent 50 minutes giving us a history lesson on how trying to prevent floods only made things worse. Stop a flood at town A and town B downstream gets wiped out. He had nothing good to say about the Army Corps of Engineers (FED, Treasury).

Prevent Bear Stearns from going under and you get AIG, CitiGroup, et al.

By: Betsy

Betsy — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:20:59 +0000

So Mr. Ferguson should get the Nostrodamus award for 2008. Big deal. Elaine Gazzarelli “predicted” the 1987 crash almost to the day, to her credit and to fame and fortune, but after that, her crystal ball went a little hazy. It’s easy, after the fact, to point to one person and say “he predicted it !” Sometimes the weatherman gets it right, but not always.

By: Walter

Walter — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:06:55 +0000

Many people saw this coming several years back. However, it is nice to see Niall
being brutally honest and totally unemotional about this issue. We need more folks
with media exposure operating from a basis of facts and not emotion.

If you can’t afford a house, then you shouldn’t be able to buy one. Seems like
common sense to me.

By: George

George — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:48:08 +0000

NF is a genius, all his history books are important & fascinating, fantastically well-written, easy to understand for the layperson.