David Walker, U.S. Comptroller General
Mr. Walker is the U.S. Comptroller General, chief accountability officer and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). GAO’s mission is to help improve the performance and assure the accountability of the federal government for the benefit of the American people. GAO has earned a reputation for professional, objective, fact-based, nonpartisan, non ideological, fair and balanced reviews of government programs and operations.
He has draws parallels between the U.S. today and the end of the Roman Empire. warning there are “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government”.
He has said that fiscal responsibility must be a top priority and if this is done the problems challenging the U.S. can be overcome but “if they don’t, I think the risk of a serious crisis rises considerably”.
Stephen Roach
Stephen S. Roach is a senior executive with Morgan Stanley, the New York-based investment bank. After being the famously bearish Chief Economist of Morgan Stanley for 16 years, Mr. Roach was promoted and named Chairman of Morgan Stanley's Asia operations in April 2007.
He has a public reputation for being bearish. But you should hear what he's saying in private. Roach met select groups of fund managers downtown last week, including a group at Fidelity.
His prediction: America has no better than a 10 percent chance of avoiding economic "Armageddon."
Press were not allowed into the meetings. But the Herald has obtained a copy of Roach's presentation. A stunned source who was at one meeting said, "it struck me how extreme he was — much more, it seemed to me, than in public."
Roach sees a 30 percent chance of a slump soon and a 60 percent chance that "we'll muddle through for a while and delay the eventual Armageddon."
Eddie Hobbs
Eddie Hobbs is a frequent speaker, writer and broadcaster on consumer issues, especially on personal finance, investment planning and on competition issues. Eddie Hobbs is best known for presenting RTÉ's blockbuster "Rip Off Republic" and RTÉ's award winning personal finance series "Show Me The Money". He has published two Irish bestsellers, Short Hands Long Pockets on debt management and Loot! on investments.
Eddie Hobbs believes that aging demographics of the western world, peak oil and climate change mean that investors should be more prudent and that investments in gold and in energy and alternative energy should be considered.
David McWilliams
David McWilliams is an Irish economist, broadcaster, journalist and author. In the mid-1990s he made regular appearances as an economist on CNN, CNBC and the BBC. He has presented current affairs programmes on Irish radio and television. He is also a regular columnist in The Sunday Business Post and Irish Independent newspapers. In Search of the Pope's Children was a three-part series examining the economic and social landscape of modern Ireland. It was presented by David McWilliams and based on his book The Pope's Children.
He has consistently warned regarding overvaluation of many property markets internationally and that the US dollar is vulnerable to a significant sell off with important ramifications for the global economy.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
One of the most perceptive analysts of current global macroeconomic and monetary risk is the International Business Editor of The Telegraph in the UK, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. In an edition of the Telegraph in July he predicted that gold will surpass it's record 1980 high of $850: "Gold will not stop at $800. It might well go beyond $2,000."
Prior to being the International Business Editor of the Telegraph he covered world politics and economics for a quarter century, based in Europe, the US, and Latin America. He joined the Telegraph in 1991, serving as Washington correspondent and later Europe correspondent in Brussels.
Robert Kiyosaki
Robert Kiyosaki, author of "Rich Dad Poor Dad," is an investor, entrepreneur, and educator whose perspectives on money and investing fly in the face of conventional wisdom.
Kiyosaki has earned a reputation for straight talk, irreverence, and courage. "Rich Dad Poor Dad" is the longest-running best-seller on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Business Week best-seller lists. It held a top spot on the New York Times list for nearly five years and was USA Today's No. 1 money book for 2004. Prior to writing "Rich Dad Poor Dad," Kiyosaki created the educational board game Cashflow 101 to teach individuals the financial and investment strategies that his rich dad spent years teaching him.
Bill Fleckenstein
Bill Fleckenstein is president of Fleckenstein Capital, which manages a hedge fund based in Seattle. He also writes a daily Market Rap column on his Fleckensteincapital.com site.
He believes the contrarian viewpoint was often misrepresented and under-reported. Since then, his daily column calls it like he sees it. He writes the column in a way that even the novice investor can understand. “It's better to teach someone how to fish, rather than just give them an occasional fish.”
Richard Russell
The venerable and internationally respected Richard Russell has been writing his financial newsletter, the Dow Theory Letters, since 1958 and is quoted in such publications as Bloomberg magazine, Barron's, Time, Newsweek, Money Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Reuters, and others.
He believes that Dow and gold will cross at 3000 - that is, the Dow will be 3,000 on the same day that gold is $3,000 an ounce. Russell states, "The odds are that in due time the Dow/gold ratio will return to the mean or perhaps much lower. That, in a nutshell, is an important long-term argument for holding real money - gold. The Dow/gold ratio is telling us that today stocks are still near their highest level in history in terms of gold. And gold is near is lowest level in history in terms of the Dow .... Russell forecast - I see an extended period, maybe multi-years, in which gold will outperform the Dow. It would not shock me to see the ratio return to 1 to 1 some day."
Bill Bonner
Bill Bonner is an author of books and articles on economic and financial subjects. He is the founder and president of Agora Publishing, and the principal author of a daily financial column known as The Daily Reckoning.
Bill has written two New York Times Best Selling books: Financial Reckoning Day and Empire of Debt along with Addison Wiggin, his friend and colleague. Both works were critically acclaimed and internationally distributed. Since 1999, Bill has also been a daily contributor and the driving force behind The Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning is a daily, free e-letter that weaves information about the financial world, investing, and everyday life into an educational and entertaining format. Today, more than 500,000 subscribers read Bill's daily columns.
In his books and in The Daily Reckoning, Bonner argues that the financial future of the United States is in peril because of various economic and demographic trends, not the least of which is America's large trade deficit. He claims that America's foreign policy exploits are tantamount to the establishment of an empire, and the price of maintaining such an empire could accelerate America's eventual decline.
Bonner and his fellow writers at The Daily Reckoning voice strong opinions about how people can best arrange their investment portfolios, including diversifying into gold in order to protect themselves from this predicted American decline.
Marc Faber
Dr Marc Faber is a Swiss financier who predicted the Wall Street Crash in 1987. He is the founder and managing director of Hong Kong-based Marc Faber Ltd, editor and publisher of the “Gloom, Boom & Doom Report,” author of many books including the best selling 'Tomorrow's Gold: Asia's Age of Discovery'. He appears regularly on Bloomberg, Fox, CNN and CNBC and is interviewed and quoted in many publications such as the International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Asia Times, Sydney Morning Herald, Bloomberg, Reuters and The Financial Times.
Faber’s company manages about $300 million in assets. He advised investors to buy gold in 2001, which has since more than doubled and he still is extremely bullish on gold and believes that gold will rise in all econommic circumstances - a global inflationary economic boom, stagflationary environment or even in a global deflationary recession.
Bill Murphy
Bill Murphy is chairman of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, www.gata.org, and proprietor of www.LeMetropoleCafe.com, an internet site devoted to financial commentary with emphasis on precious metals. In Le Metropole Café, Gold Investors, commodity market experts, and top financial minds from all over the world meet, discuss, and publish their insights on the world of gold investing. Since 1999, when GATA was formed, Bill Murphy has greatly contributed to public awareness of gold.
Ted Butler
Ted Butler is an independent commodity analyst and one of the world’s foremost experts on the silver market. His weekly columns, posted on his website ButlerResearch.com, contain two main themes. Firstly, that the COMEX is allowing a small group of short sellers to manipulate and suppress the price of silver and secondly that there is a very large scarcity of above-ground silver, primarily due to the growing industrial uses of silver and that this supply demand imbalance will inevitably lead to sharply higher silver prices.
Adam Hamilton
Zeal LLC is a pro-free market, pro-capitalism, and pro-laissez faire contrarian investing and speculating Information Age financial-services company. The principals are lifelong contrarian students of the markets who live for studying and trading them. They employ innovative cutting-edge technical analysis as well as deep fundamental analysis to inform and educate subscribers on how to grow and protect their capital through all market conditions.
Puru Saxena
Puru Saxena publishes Money Matters, a monthly economic report, which highlights extraordinary investment opportunities in all major markets. Money Matters is available by subscription from purusaxena.com.
Puru Saxena is the founder of Puru Saxena Limited, his Hong Kong based firm which manages investment portfolios for individuals and corporate clients. He is a highly showcased investment manager and a regular guest on CNN, BBC World, CNBC, Bloomberg, NDTV and various radio programmes.
James Puplava
Jim Puplava is highly respected in the field of economics and money and his excellent website FinancialSense.com is an important read for experienced and novice investors alike. Jim Puplava is one of the few US financial commentators who is fully up to speed on Peak Oil and has interviewed Matt Simmons on his his highly informative and free radio newshour. The free financial advice and perspectives at Financial Sense and Financial Sense Newshour is intended to give each investor, no matter their income or level of financial expertise, a greater understanding of the markets, and a more informed approach to making investment decisions.
Will Hutton
Will Hutton is one of Britain's leading commentators on British, European and international politics, writes each week in The Observer. He is the former editor-in-chief for The Observer in London and currently Chief Executive of The Work Foundation. He is the author of the best-seller "The World We're In", following up his hit book "The State We're In". He won the 1992 What The Papers Say award for political journalist of the year.
Hutton's most recent book The Writing On The Wall: Why We Must Embrace China as a Partner or Face It as an Enemy was released in the UK in January 2007. The book examines Western concerns and responses to the rise of China and the emerging global division of labour, and argues that the Chinese economy is running up against a set of increasingly unsustainable contradictions that could have a damaging universal fallout.
Jim Rogers
Jim Rogers is a Wall Street Legend who set up the Quantum Fund with George Soros in 1970. He has taught finance at Columbia University’s business school and is a media commentator worldwide. He is the author of Adventure Capitalist and Investment Biker and was dubbed the 'Indiana Jones of finance' by TIME magazine.
He is a regular contributor to Worth magazine and a business correspondent for Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto, in addition to CNBC. His forecasts are featured in Barron’s, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, TIME, The Washington Post and many other domestic and international publications. He lives in New York City with his wife, Paige Parker, and their 18-month-old daughter, who is learning Chinese and owns commodities but doesn’t own stocks or bonds.
George Soros
George Soros is Chairman of Soros Fund Management, LLC and founder of The Open Society Institute. He accumulated a large fortune through the investment advisory firm he founded and managed. Mr. Soros is the author of nine books, including most recently The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror. His articles and essays regularly appear in publications around the world.
The financier is worried about the world economy and thinks there could be a collapse in US house prices. A US recession could ensue which could overspill into a foreign exchange crisis and global instability as the value of the dollar drops. Commentators have pointed to the surging price of gold as evidence that investors are increasingly worried that the Soros scenario will become reality.
Bill Gross
William H. Gross is an American financial manager and investment author. In the 1990s he authored two popular-market books on investing.
Gross is one of the world's largest mutual fund managers, focusing mostly on bonds. Called "the nation's most prominent bond investor" by the New York Times, he manages Pacific Investment Management's Total Return fund (the world's largest bond fund and fifth largest mutual fund) and several smaller ones.
He has long advised investors to adopt a more "more risk-taking posture" as markets are set to remain beset by uncertainties.
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