The financial industry has its peaks and troughs. There is always some "fashionable investment" that busts. I remember Prudential (since I was a head of auto research at the time) had a group where they took investments that used to be tax deferred and made them high yield and sold them to everyone without due diligence. That department was swimming in money -- until they got hit with a 800 million fine. And that is the way they go but this time, they got money from the fed instead of fines with this whole securitization business. Always there was a fine and clean up after the scam.
This time the whole country will pay. But that doesn't mean individuals, and gifted people should have an advantage to think out of the box, to make it big. Hence, gifted people have a real advantage in the difficult years to come. Consumer spending was really down -- yesterday's posting and resulting 265 point down in the Dow. That is a leading indicator of not good things to come.
Ren
