Buffet’s words ring hollow but his words seem eerily familiar. Who could forget the corporate plunder that took place during the 2008 banking crisis? Remember JP Morgan’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon? He made over a billion dollars during his career at JP Morgan. At Davos Switzerland, he hopped off his private jet and lectured CNBC’s viewers, which included the president of France at the time, that he was fed up with banker bashing. Seriously? Dimon should have just declared, “You are debt-serfs, we are oligarchs – accept the facts, you peasants. We will monitor you on social media, so do not try and resist.”
Over in the UK, ex-chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne said: “It’s time to stop banker-bashing.” Really, George? Your bailouts cost the UK taxpayers dearly – bailouts that have yet to be repaid.
As written in book ‘Planet Ponzi’ nearly eight years ago, Wall Street needed help in carrying out history’s biggest Ponzi scheme, and they got it in the form of Washington DC and a complicit media that refused to question anything critically.
So where does the folksy old man from Omaha come in? Well, in 2008, the “sage of Omaha” leveraged relationships with Goldman Sachs and Washington DC “to bail out America.” Oddly, ex-Goldman Sachs chairman Hank Paulson was running the Treasury at the time Buffett arranged deals sweeter than a Dairy Queen sundae.
But during his annual shareholder meeting on May 2, Buffet no longer touted “I’m bullish, buy America.” In fact, he’s bearish and has joined the Planet Ponzi camp, believing the Federal Reserve has inflated valuation bubbles in every asset class across the board. Buffet even used a line I have been telling investors since the 1980s – I’m not pessimistic or optimistic, I’m realistic.
Time to get short stocks; things are going to get ugly as markets are likely to make new lows.
