Description for Financial Armageddon: Protecting Your Future From Four Impending Catastrophes

When the stock market bubble burst in 2000, the collapse that followed wiped out over two-thirds of the value of the Nasdaq Index and decimated the hopes and dreams of millions of Americans.

Now, imagine not one, but four such disasters looming on the horizon, all poised to erupt in a massive economic firestorm that will wreak widespread havoc in the months and years to come.

In Financial Armageddon, Wall Street insider Michael J. Panzner identifies the most pressing financial risks we face today: First, a burgeoning tower of public and private debt wobbling precariously on a foundation of excess and fraud; second, a multi-trillion-dollar house of cards to which all Americans are exposed but few understand; third, a vast array of largely hidden government promises that will ultimately go unkept; and fourth, a retirement mirage that will leave millions enslaved to the workplace until the day they die.

Panzner details the devastating impact that each phase of the coming calamity will have on the lives of every American, and shows readers how to recognize, guard against, and overcome myriad threats to their wealth and personal finances. Learn:

• How an unraveling economy will affect earnings, prices, and interest rates
• When to sell, what to buy, and where to invest as the crisis unfolds
• What to watch out for in relationships with friends, employers, and others
• The social, political, and geopolitical fallout from widespread financial upheaval

Financial Armageddon offers practical advice to weather the storm, simple steps to plan ahead, and a plan to survive if the unraveling hits before you’re prepared. With time running out, every American must learn of the disaster-in-the-making so they can protect themselves, their families, and their economic well-being—before it’s too late.

Comments

[Paul Pasqualini]

I just read this book. I definitely believe hard times are coming but this book is irresponsible. The book itself is loaded with contradictions.

Here are just a few points I found to be incorrect.

On one hand Mr. Panzner presents a US Congress that lacks the political fortitude to respond to the current out of control spending by The Bush administration adding to the problem. But at the same time he has no problem envisioning this same spineless congress having enough political clout to enact damaging Xenophobic policies. He can't have it both ways. No matter how bad it gets, if congress is impotent, it won't be able to pass anti-immigration policies in the face of a growing hispanic lobbying group. Also Mr. Panzner believes we have forgotten the history of The Smoot-Hawley Tarriffs. That is simply an untruth.

He mentions that emerging economies like China and Russia will addd 1.5 billion workers to the global economy while he alludes to our financial woes leading to a global depression. There can not be that type of growth in the global labor market. Panzner himself states that other global economies that depend on the American consumer will be effected by a sharp downturn in our spending. He is obviously alluding to China with that statement. In essence China, despite it's rapid economic growth has not developed the middle class capable of sustaining their economic output to the American consumer. Therefore, how will those 1.5 billion jobs be created? Through the building of Chinese infrastructure? if that is so, it actually helps fuel our economy...

Panzner discusses the new political muscle of countries like Russia on the world stage. When (and an economic contraction is coming)the economic contraction takes full hold, the price of oil will definitely fall as the US makes up 25% to 30% of the world demand for oil. This will directly effect the stability of The Russia, Iran and Venezuela governments and economies as they they are propped up by high oil prices. How can they fill the vacuum of a retracting Imperial America if they themselves are dealing with their own economic disasters and the political fall out?

Panzner rightfully points out how the US dollar was released from gold during the Nixon administration. But, in a deal with The Saudi ruling family it became the petro dollar, meaning we ensured their security in exchange for making the US dollar the exclusive currency of trading oil. Sure Iran tried to create in 2006 an oil burse on the internet that would accept the Euro. But The United States in essence held a gun to their head by threatening to bomb them. That is why when both North Korea and Iran were making threats about nuclear weapons in 2006 we addressed Iran threats and ignored North Korea.

Mr. Panzner must finally, along with disliking the Central Bank, just hate this country and have absolutely no faith in our ability to turn things around. He completely ignores the fact that despite the Bush Administrations free wheeling spending, we are still only seven years removed from a Clinton administration that practiced fiscal responsibility and created a budget surplus. Sure our national debt is 9 trillion dollars, but I have no doubt the next administration, as long as it isn't the Giuliani camp, can pull us out of Iraq and balance the budget.

This book is terrible and written in a vacuum to create fear and sell units. Please... this needs to stop. We are indeed heading for VERY HARD econmic times in the coming ten to twenty years but spewing this kind of trash helps no one.

[Michael Panzner]

Thank you for your comments. I disagree with your assumptions, your arguments, and your opinions of my book, but I accept that not everyone is interested in hearing the unvarnnished truth. I wish you the best of luck in future. Hopefully, your perspectives won't end up hurting too many of those you care about.

[Krisztian Koncz]

Mike, I have not yet read your book, but I most certainly will. I have read variations to the four main arguments in your book in other publications and there is particular reason to believe that the US could be heading towards bankruptcy especially due to its Trillion dollar per annum wars. One Superpower has already met its end in the mountains of Afghanistan and the US could end up like the SU (see Dmitry Orlov's articles and Bin Laden's claims that he is hell bent on bankrupting the US economy through insurgencies just as he did with the Russians). If various economists (Stiglitz for instance) are correct, the US is spending 7 percent of GDP and 30 percent of the Federal budget on warfare (who would dare to call it defense these days?). These numbers are very close to what the SU was spending on war-related projects and of course we must take into account opportunity costs. In effect the US is NOT spending 20 percent of the Federal Budget and 4-5 percent of its GDP (surely 300 Billion annually would be more than ample for defense spending) on upgrading infrastructure, educating its citizens, providing acceptable universal healthcare and investing in consumer goods production. This will have to bite soon and the US might find its war economy collapsing and its civilian production too weak and its goods and services too uncompetitive to make up for the difference. This country will need to take a radically different course if it doesn't want to end up like the now defunct Soviet Union.