For all the Finance Geeks out there, is he right ?
Or is he just another one of the scared people ?

the fact that he said the USD is a safer asset than the Euro was enough to discredit him in my mind.

The guy is very aggressive in what he is saying. Very candid and bit Evil as well but most of it is true. I would also write down USD (like the comment above), Most of the western treasury with it.. Well what he said about GS is not bullshit..

one thing to remember ... the guys who really know what is going on - they don't go on TV and tell you how to make money off it. They trade on the information and their knowledge.

having said that, I do agree with a lot of the stuff he says.. Europe is headed down a very slippery slope, and it is all going to end very badly - and not just for Greece. and if you agree with that prognosis, then the USD is the safe haven indeed...

I actually heard it from many traders. that the usd is the currency to invest in again. The way I see it is what has happened to the USA in 2008-2009 is what is about to happen here. the USA is on the way to recovery so yes.

Its quite interesting; I wrote my Uni dissertation on currencies back in 2004-5 "war of currencies" and everything I said in there actually has come true

Why would anyone disagree with this guy? I agree 100% with this guy. The Euro wont be around after Germany leaves the Euro. Also, there is only one way to fix this banking problem and thats with a "reset"..... Last two times we had resets were in Brazil in 1990 and Argentina in 1991. This is the exact same set up, only the banks are now 4x as levered.

And what happens when banks de-lever? They pay back debt. What kind of debt? USD debt. And guess what, there is only $8Tr worth of money vs. $60Tr of debt. That means there are not enough dollars to help banks out.

In Europe its called the "dollar funding gap" (google it). When the euro gets dropped the USD will likely double. Look at the CHinese currency this week. CNHHKD is collapsing and so are NDF's.... The move has started and probably wont end until we have a reset.

That means you should hold at least 2 months worth of cash outside of your bank and you should have 2 months supply of food (people generally eat their dogs during resets because no one can get enough money out of the banks for food).

I would suggest reading: A History Of Interest Rates, Debt: The First 5000 Years, and Modern Survival Manual by Fernando Ferfal Aguirre.

My boss used to work for GS and we are always in contact with people there. No one expects any of the EU members to make it out alive.

People have short memories. Italy was bankrupt in 1998, 6 months before they joined the Euro. The Germans bailed them out. Greece's pension shortfall is 10x its GDP and Germany has already been the patsy for them. Italy is 5x GDP in pension shortfalls.

The euro will collapse. If you think I am wrong then bet against me.

But what scares me is that people who have never invested money find what this guy is saying as "alien" or "extreme"..... No one else who actually invests money disagrees with this guys except for low quality players like "Fund of funds".

Just wondering how to profit from this if/when it happens?

Any idea what will happen to private Euro denominated loans and mortgages in Germany? Would they be forcibly converted to DM?

How could Germany stabilise their new currency in the first few months?

What are you saying? You are not clever enough to exploit the masses because of the way their government has ran their country? Go buy your wife some jewellery.

If I were to move back to the states in 6 months, would I want to push as much CHF over to dollars as possible this week since the CHF is pegged (or whatever you want to call it)? I'd really hate to take a shave on both sides of this move in only a year and it's getting close at the current rate.

Become a dog breeder?

All Alessio Rastani did was was make assertions. That's okay. It's a free world.His comments were aligned with his professional interests as a public speaker.

Nobody's denying the gravity of the financial crisis. Or that it'll take years to sort it out. Or that the ride won't be scary at times. I have a few questions though.

If, as this guy suggests, the crisis is a trader's dream and Goldman and the other banks are so smart that they know what's round the corner, then I wait for Goldman's q3 results with eager anticipation. Their trading desks must have made a fortune. We'll see in mid october when they report. I'm not holding my breath.

If Goldman truly rule the world, and people "in the know" know this, then why have their shares dropped from $174 to $95 YTD. Why is it trading below tangible book value?

If nobody who actually invests money disagrees with this Alessio Rastani then why haven't financial markets priced in the armageddon scenario he's painting.

One thing he's wrong about though. Of course trading houses like Goldman care whether the governments are going to fix the economy. Until that happens, capital markets (global debt and equity capital underwritings) won't get back to what they were. That's where investment banks make a fortune. Revenues associated with that activity all drops to the bottom line. Anybody with any real experience of running a trading operation at a major investment bank knows that.

May we presume this is what you have already done and you already have a stash of cash, food and dogs??

deeper question:

why would you want to be sitting on currencies at all?

the markets are very low right now so put your money into stocks, forget about them and when you come back you may be in for a nice surprise.

@Zuger You are right (same as what most of people saying) but just that drawing extreme examples in the video won't help proving the point.

@Amogles I agree that currencies are the root problem here.

Generally I think moving to USD or to any other currency is not the right thing to do. What we all are saying is that the current buying power of respective currency is more than it would be in future.

Now the real point is the best bet is to use the cash to buy an asset class which is likely to deteriorate lee or is likely to appreciate. Buying 2 months of fodder and grain won't help. I feel the commodities are coming down and they represent the real value of the barter. A mix bag of essentials (Grains, agro etc), Energy (Oil) and some exposure to Precious should be a good bet as most of these are the once which are effectively the component of inflation. Any major correction in any of these asset classes should trigger a buy for the person looking to own reliable asset. The USD very short terms looks good but medium and long term not sure.

May be some of us should meet up for beers and end up forming a fund ..

All it means is there a better value today at nearly 50% off. Market sentiment will change, however with all the money in the world you could not open another GS tomorrow, which is something you cant say about many businesses.

My neighbour has a corgi. Now, if I could get my hands on it, does anyone know how long an average sized corgi could feed two people?

Or should I start eyeing up his ginger tomcat just in case?

I can eat a hot dog in around a minute and I'm still hungry after, if that helps.

you live next to Buckhingham Palace?

I should stop poking around and reading some of the gloom about the impending crisis, but the sheer number of people who are saying, if not the same things, very similar things about an armageddon-like scenario in the not-so-distant future is rather worrisome. I'm not a banker or a high-flying investment type poised to make a profit in the collapse so if I'm screwed, there's not a lot I can do about it at this point since I have no crystal ball or insider knowledge, but where I get nervous is the talk of stockpiling food.

Me, I could use to miss a month of meals if I had to, but when you have a young child, it's the kind of thing that gives you instant cold sweaty palms and a quickened pulse. This story about the US stockpiling ( http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/a...conomic-crisis ) seems more like something a tinfoil hat society would write but...it seems to be a theme in a number of places, not just the US.

So, if I were going to set up a reserve of food, something like MREs I suppose, where would you find that kind of thing in CH or parts nearby? Preferrably not Corgis, either.

If the economy collapses totally, there will be no payroll. No one will work. So no police etc. All you need is a gun or decent knife (I may go for a crossbow, they're cool) and thick gloves for smashing through the glass at Coop or Migros (or Denner if it really comes to that).

Failing that, I will simply chase down and eat fat people. They can't run away. Then I will get fat, and someone will eat me. Thanks for playing!