The Saxo Bank based in Denmark has issued a Bearish Assessment for 2008, the silver lining is a Paul Presidency
Saxo Bank experts believe that oil prices will hit the level of 175 dollars per barrel in 2008, whereas grain prices will double. The U.S. and the Chinese markets will collapse by 25 and 40 percent respectively by the end of the summer of 2008. Every third of ten U.S. large building companies will go bankrupt. The British economy will also start declining.
The bank has its forecast on the new U.S. president too. The bank predicts that Ron Paul, the Texan Republican, will take the office in 2008.
What does this mean?
I think it is interesting that a respected financial institution would 1) make such a Casandra-like economic forecast, 2) go out on a limb and predict a Paul Presidency. What is it with these Danes? Libertarian leanings, or just contrarianism?
Of course Friends of Ron Paul in Japan would like the latter prediction to come true, but hopefully without the tanking of the global economy. Are we to assume the two forecasts are linked…that is what a cursory reading would assume. Perhaps the Saxo experts are thinking that conditions will worsen early in the year, creating a political demand for an economic outsider to reform (or rather revolutionize) the system. Or in a more sinsiter vein…are they central banking fans who think that Ron Paul’s election will spook the economy into a depression? The emphasis on oil as a fundamental factor would seem to exclude this latter interpretation.
I don’t know what these Danes are up to myself, but let’s eschew any Hamlet like equivocation and assume that they are Paulistas at heart. If so, the prediction provides plenty of food for thought…or rather angst. The timing is troublesome, since twelve months is a long time, and the Republican cards are likely to be dealt out pretty early in the year. That doesn’t leave much time for reaction to bad news.
In other words, I see the message of these melancholy Danes as just another wake up call for the Paulistas. The window of opportunity is now, with the onset of the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary, and all the other early year political events. If significant headway isn’t made within this time frame, all those thousands of people who just got political to help Ron Paul “for the first time in their life” can just go back to whatever preoccupied them before they became Paulistas, because the show will be over.
“To do or do not…there is no try!” That’s Yoda, not Hamlet.
