Healthcare Traveler - February 2009 - (Page 22)

Pass the Hat learning that no one—from advisors, to CEOs, to banks, to Wall Street, to regulators, to rating agencies, to worldwide investors—understood mortgagebacked securities derivatives, the investments that have triggered the demise of banks, stock markets, and individual investment accounts. If experts can already explain what happened, why couldn’t they see it happening and stop it? In fact, there were plenty of people who saw this coming. This diverse group included investment manager Peter Schiff; George Magnus, senior economic advisor to UBS; Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX); TV and radio commentator Glenn Beck; economist Marc Faber, PhD; Nassim Nicholas Taleb, economist and investment advisor; Antal E. Fekete, professor emeritus of mathematics; radio host Alex Jones; and authors Darryl Schoon, David Icke, and Daniel Estulin. One of the more extreme predictions was made by Nouriel Roubini, PhD, an economics professor at New York University. In 2006, in a speech before the International Monetary Fund, he predicted the housing decline, the mortgage defaults, the failure of investment banks and other lenders, the decline of mortgagebacked securities, the oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence, the global credit crisis, and, ultimately, a deep recession. For his trouble, Roubini was nicknamed “Dr. Doom” by the media and other economists. The most important individual metric to increase your chance of economic survival is a personal emergency fund. However, it’s possible that the crisis is based in a more systemic problem; and the housing, mortgage, and credit problems merely amplified this underlying cause. In 1993, in his book, The Great Boom Ahead, economist Harry Dent proposed that the ebb and flow of the economy is driven by the predictable, life-cycle spending of average Americans and that the economy grows when driven by higher birth rates (more available spenders), declining when birth rates decline. Testing this theory, he found that the backward projection of birth rates accurately explained the economic cycles back to the Roaring ’20s, including the Great Depression, the Post-War Boom, the Oil Embargo Circle Career Card No. 611 22 Healthcare Traveler Feburary 2009 http://www.hrnservices.com http://www.hrnservices.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Healthcare Traveler - February 2009

Healthcare Traveler - February 2009 Editor’s Desk Contents In a Flash Paws for Thought Field Notes Med Ec-cerpts The Economic Meltdown What Really is a “Tax Home”? Beach Therapy Drug Update Professional Update Advice of Counsel Cityscape Advertisers’ Index Name It Contest Rules On Assignment Tax Facts Dot.com Big Deals Allied Corner Going the Distance Classifieds Tales from the Road

Healthcare Traveler - February 2009

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