Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit In The Next Global Financial Meltdown, Second Edition

CHAPTER 4

Phase II: The Aftershock

POP GO THE DOLLAR AND GOVERNMENT DEBT BUBBLES

In our presentations, we often tell people that the biggest impact of the bursting housing, stock, private debt, and discretionary spending bubbles is not the immediate problems caused by the popping itself, although that has been very upsetting and very costly to the economy. The biggest impact of these four bursting bubbles is the terrible downward pressure they are now exerting on our two remaining bubbles: the dollar bubble and the government debt bubble.

It won’t be hard to convince you that we have an enormous government debt bubble, so we’ll get back to that in a few pages. Right now, we’d like you to keep an open mind and consider the possibility that we have a vulnerable dollar bubble. We know this is hard to believe. All we ask is that you read on a bit more before coming to your own reasonable conclusions. If we are right (and based on our first book in 2006, we have an excellent track record), you cannot afford to ignore this. We know it feels fundamentally wrong, but please let icy cold logic be your guide.