In 2007 when most investment analysts and economists were downplaying the developing credit market troubles, Bert warned investors that the probability was very high that the troubles would escalate into full-blown crisis and would produce a crash of historic proportions. He chronicled the developing credit crisis in the pages of his newsletter and also published a book in early 2008, Prelude to Meltdown, which provided his insightful views on the emerging crisis in depth. The book will surely go down as a landmark written by a financial visionary who was several steps ahead of his peers.
Dohmen writes the widely read Wellington Letter investment advisory, which has provided top-notch forecast and analysis of U.S. and global financial and economic trends since January 1977. His newsletter has received many #1 ratings by the top ratings services and has forecasted every bear market using sophisticated technical analysis. Bert also frequently appears as a guest on financial television, including CNN's Moneyline, CNBC and FOX News. Over the last 30 years he has been a favorite speaker at the largest investment conferences.
On August 27, I spoke with Bert concerning his forecast of the credit crisis, the likelihood of another financial crisis, the bond market "bubble" and the outlook for gold. His answers were as always refreshing and full of insight. Following is a transcript of that interview.
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Q: It indeed appeared that the monetary authorities waited until the proverbial last minute before acting. Is there anything the Fed and the Treasury could have done to mitigate the credit crisis in 2007 and 2008?
Dohmen: The regulators were in collusion with Wall Street. This wasn't a failure of capitalism, this was a failure of regulatory agencies and in my opinion some of it was criminal. The Wall Street firms, the big ones, were limited to 12-to-1 margin based on their capital until 2004. Then the head of the SEC, who was a former founder of a very large Wall Street firm, and he had been able to field these Wall Street guys and after that they decided to increase the permitted leverage I believe to 34-to-1. That was absolutely incredible. I remember whey that happened I said, "If these firms only have a 3 percent decline in their speculative investment it wipes out all of the equity." I wondered how could this be allowed. These guys were just asking for failure. The reason it was allowed because the higher the leverage the higher the potential profits. And I guess the theory was if something goes wrong the taxpayer would pay the losses. They get the profits, the taxpayer gets the losses. And that's exactly what happened.
We had other things like that in other areas of the housing market. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were basically coerced into giving mortgages who had no jobs, no income and no net worth. Yet they got mortgages because the Congressmen said that's what we have to do. You know the names of these Congressmen. So it was really excess of government, excess of speculation and there was no rationale behind it. Even right now when you consider that the FHA is making mortgage loans with only 3 percent down - 3 percent down! Nothing has been learned in this last episode. And that's why this crisis is not over. We are just in the middle of it. There's another 50 percent to go.
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