Marc Faber

Marc Faber
Marc Faberis a Swiss investor based in Thailand. Faber is publisher of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report newsletter and is the director of Marc Faber Ltd, which acts as an investment advisor and fund manager. Faber also serves as director, advisor, and shareholder of a number of investment funds that focus on emerging and frontier markets, including Leopard Capital’s Leopard Cambodia Fund and Asia Frontier Capital Ltd.'s AFC Asia Frontier Fund...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth28 February 1946
CountryUnited States of America
In the 40 years I've been working as an economist and investor, I have never seen such a disconnect between the asset market and the economic reality... Asset markets are in the sky, and the economy of the ordinary people is in the dumps, where their real incomes adjusted for inflation are going down and asset markets are going up.
When people talk about people who are optimistic about gold, they call them 'gold bugs.' A bug is an insect. I don't call equity bugs 'cockroaches.' Do you understand? There is already a negative connotation with the expression of 'gold bug.'
It was easy for the Democrats to attack the wealthy fat cats of Wall Street, the elite, and the privileged people - to portray them as a profiteer of the system, which to some extent, they are. Not because they wanted to, but because Mr. Bernanke enabled them to be profiteers.
Now, McDonald's is a very good indicator of the global economy. If McDonald's doesn't increase its sales, it tells you that the monetary policies have largely failed in the sense that prices are going up more than disposable income, and so people have less purchasing power.
The fallacy of monetary policy in the U.S. is to believe this money will go to the man on the street. It won't. It goes to the Mayfair economy of the well-to-do people and boosts asset prices of Warhols... Very happy. Very good for the Fed. Congratulations, Mr. Bernanke.
I am pretty sure central banks will continue to print money, and the standards of living for people in the western world, not just in America, will continue to decline because the cost of living increases will exceed income. The cost of living will also go up because all kinds of taxes will increase.
In the economy of the cuckoo people that populate central banks, everything is possible. What you have is gigantic bubbles, the NASDAQ in 2000, then the housing bubble and then commodities in 2008 when oil went from $78 to $147 before plunging to $32 within six months.
When you print money, the money does not flow evenly into the economic system. It stays essentially in the financial service industry and among people that have access to these funds, mostly well-to-do people. It does not go to the worker.
The problem with Mr. Obama is that you get more regulation and it's a disincentive for businessmen to hire people. You probably also get higher taxes, so in terms of the economy, he is very negative in my view.
If we have an economic crisis in the Western world it's because the government makes up 50 percent or more of the economy. This is a cancer that is taking away people's freedom.
Each money-printing exercise brings about unintended consequences. These unintended consequences are higher inflation rates than had no money been printed.
There's no such thing as a favorite investment. But I think I tend to invest in Asia in promising countries, in equities, in real estate, and I own precious metals, obviously.
When it comes to money, the best investments were probably the ones I did not make.
I believe that the market is slowly waking up to the fact that the Federal Reserve is a clueless organization. They have no idea what they're doing. And so the confidence level of investors is diminishing, in my view.