The Smartest Man in Europe

The Smartest Man is a Firedancer

“The next step will be for every central bank in the world to keep printing money.  Ultimately this will bring on a higher level of inflation, but I think the world is ready to accept that.  World leaders will agree that growth should be their objective and inflation will be the price they will have to pay for it.  This may result in some instability among currencies.  Before this happens there will have to be more suffering.  Spain and Greece will default.  There won’t be outright financial disaster because by the time the defaults take place the banks will have sold most of the troubled sovereign debt on their balance sheets to the European Central Bank.  France’s deficit will get worse as Hollande implements some of the programs he talked about in his campaign.  Human beings and governments have an unlimited imagination and they will use it to delay the day of reckoning.  In the longer term the crisis may turn out to be a good thing because the pain of what we are about to go through will prevent it from ever happening again."

and

“So what am I doing with my money?  It is hard to hide in stocks.  Even Danone is reporting disappointing earnings; people are so worried they aren’t even buying yogurt.  The French auto companies are in trouble.  I think gold is going much higher.  I am buying energy stocks because I want to own something real.  Preserving capital is my focus now, not making money, but I like IBM and Apple.  Also some Swiss multi-nationals.  If Obama wins in November the market will go down.  A Romney victory will create a rally, but once he gets into office he will find there is not much he can do to make things better.”