Macroeconomist Gordon Long says,
"We're not really running a capitalist system. We are running a credit system. Instead of using savings, we are using credit. Credit, the way we are doing it now, is really a form of counterfeiting. If you look at the $72 trillion shadow banking system that we have operating right now, that is generating this credit . . . it collapsed in 2008 . . . and now it's on a hairy edge. It's not mortgages and housing this time. It's student loans through Sallie Mae. These students don't have any hope of paying this back. We are talking north of $1.1 to $1.2 trillion. It's car loans this time because of subprime. That's the way to look at car loans, they are sub-prime. . . . And you got these highly leveraged real estate investment trusts also operating through the shadow banking system. These problems are blatantly evident, and I don't think the powers that be have any control over them."On the next financial crisis, Mr. Long contends,
"I think 2008 was an early warning signal of the magnitude of the problem. We didn't fix it. We did extend and pretend. Dodd-Frank did not solve the underlying issues. The global swaps market went from $600 trillion to $700 trillion last year, alone. We've watched the shadow banking system push through $72 trillion. So, we didn't stop it. We just, in fact, inflamed it even worse, and we got into even riskier kinds of assets. Is it imminent? No, I think we are talking 2015. I think we have a little bit of a deflation scare before we get into the hyperinflation. Don't underestimate the central bankers and the politicians' ability to kick the can down the road. They still got some more bullets here."
Comment: What Gordon Long is suggesting is that as the dollar loses favor in world trade settlement, these foreign reserve dollars will find their way back "home" in the form of claims (sales) of any real assets denominated in US Dollars (ie: US assets) - and that this will spark overt hyperinflation.