The world\u2019s most powerful investors have been advised to buy farmland, stock up on gold and prepare for a \u201cdirty war\u201d by Marc Faber, the notoriously bearish market pundit, who predicted the 1987 stock market crash. <\/p>\n
The bleak warning of social and financial meltdown, delivered today in Tokyo at a gathering of 700 pension and sovereign wealth fund managers. <\/p>\n
Dr Faber, who advised his audience to pull out of American stocks one week before the 1987 crash and was among a handful who predicted the more recent financial crisis, vies with the Nouriel Roubini, the economist, as a rival claimant for the nickname Dr Doom. <\/p>\n
Speaking today, Dr Faber said that investors, who control billions of dollars of assets, should start considering the effects of more disruptive events than mere market volatility. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe next war will be a dirty war,\u201d he told fund managers: “What are you going to do when your mobile phone gets shut down or the internet stops working or the city water supplies get poisoned?\u201d <\/p>\n
His investment advice, which was the first keynote speech of CLSA\u2019s annual investment forum in Tokyo, included a suggestion that fund managers buy houses in the countryside because it was more likely that violence, biological attack and other acts of a \u201cdirty war\u201d would happen in cities. <\/p>\n
He also said that they should consider holding part of their wealth in the form of precious metals \u201cbecause they can be carried\u201d. <\/p>\n
One London-based hedge fund manager described Mr Faber\u2019s address as \u201cexcellent, chilling stuff: good at putting you off lunch, but not something I can tell clients asking me about quarterly returns at the end of March\u201d. <\/p>\n
Dr Faber did offer a few more traditional investment tips, although their theme fitted his general mode of pessimism. <\/p>\n
In Asia, particularly, he said, stock pickers should play on future food and water shortages by buying into companies with exposure to agriculture and water treatment technologies. <\/p>\n
One of Dr Faber\u2019s darker scenarios involves growing military tension between China and the United States over access to limited oil resources. <\/p>\n
Today the US has a considerable advantage over China because it has free access to oceans on both coasts, and has potential energy suppliers to the north and south in Canada and Mexico. <\/p>\n
It also commands an 11-strong fleet of aircraft carriers that could, if necessary, secure supply routes in a conflict situation. <\/p>\n
China and emerging Asia, meanwhile, face the uncertainty of supplies that must travel from the Middle East through winding sea lanes and the Malacca bottleneck. <\/p>\n
American military presence in Central Asia, Dr Faber said, may add to the level of concern in Beijing. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I tell people to prepare themselves for a dirty war, they ask me: \u201cAmerica against whom?\u201d I tell them that for sure they will find someone.\u201d <\/p>\n
At the heart of Dr Faber\u2019s argument is a fundamentally gloomy view on the US economy and its capacity to service a growing mountain of debt. <\/p>\n
His belief, fund managers were told, is that the US is going to go bankrupt. <\/p>\n
Under President Obama, he said, the country\u2019s annual fiscal deficit will not drop below $1 trillion and could rise beyond that figure. <\/p>\n
Arch bears have predicted that US debt repayments could hit 35 per cent of tax revenues within ten years. <\/p>\n
Dr Faber believes that the ratio could easily hit 50 per cent in the same time frame.
\n
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<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Let’s get happy!] ‘Buy farmland and gold,’ advises Dr Doom \u201cThe next war will be a dirty war…” [From business.timesonline.co.uk.] The world\u2019s most powerful investors have been advised to buy farmland, stock up on gold and prepare for a \u201cdirty war\u201d by Marc Faber, the notoriously bearish market pundit, who predicted the 1987 stock market crash. The bleak warning of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":242,"url":"http:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2007\/02\/18\/the-fall-reformation-post-tlcm-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":2121,"position":0},"title":"The Fall Reformation! 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