Doomsday Cycle Targets America Next

Commentary: Warning: Money + politics = ticking time bomb

Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Warning bells, alarms scream louder. But our banks and politicians can’t hear, are deaf, in denial. Won’t take action … not until it is too late.

That’s the latest from Simon Johnson and Peter Boone in “The Doomsday Cycle Turns: Who’s Next?” Who is next? America, Japan, the euro zone are the triple threat next in the line of fire, in danger of collapsing, thanks to a doomsday conspiracy where global “political and financial systems have aligned to build these dangers rather than suppress them.”

Three years ago, the first warning: “The Doomsday Cycle.” Since then Simon Johnson, former IMF chief economist, co-authored two bestsellers, “13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown,” and recently, “White House Burning.” Peter Boone is a research associate at the London School of Economics, which published their doomsday warnings.

In the first they warned: “Over the last 30 years, we have built a financial system that threatens to topple our global economic order, we have let an unsustainable and crazy ‘doomsday cycle’ infiltrate our economic system.” This doomsday “cycle will not run forever … The destructive power of the down-cycle will overwhelm the restorative ability of the government, just like it did in 1929-31.”

America has ignored the lessons of the 2008 meltdown even though coming “remarkably close to another Great Depression. Next time, we may not be so lucky.”

First. Risks shifted from emerging nations to big developed nations

Why? The “next time” is accelerating. But Americans are distracted by election drama, can’t see the oncoming train. Are Johnson and Boone alarmists crying wolf? Chicken Littles? Cassandras? No, they do see the collapse coming, its driven by a conspiracy of “political and financial systems” that will not act “until it is too late.”

So in this new warning, they ask: “Who’s Next? ” Here’s a summary, some paraphrased, some direct quotes:

Earlier, smaller emerging nations were at risk of collapsing. The threat has now shifted to developed countries, their financial institutions, government finances, and economic growth prospects are at great risk: And that world has “created enormous, complex financial structures that can inflict tragic consequences with failure and yet are inherently difficult to regulate and control … there are more and worse crises to come.”

Second. Financiers and politicians align in ‘symbiotic’ conspiracy

“There is a common problem underlying the economic troubles of Europe, Japan, and the US: the symbiotic relationship between politicians who heed narrow interests and the growth of a financial sector that has become increasingly opaque. Bailouts have encouraged reckless behavior in the financial sector, which builds up further risks — and will lead to another round of shocks, collapses, and bailouts.” That’s a doomsday conspiracy: money and politics.

The Doomsday Cycle became visible in 2007-08 in the months following the fall of Lehman, and Iceland, Irish banks and “endless lending programs by the IMF and the EU” for Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Spain, other euro-zone countries. Today some are claiming that the euro zone “put the worst of their problems behind them.”

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