Ultimate Crisis Is Still Coming: Marc Faber

Author of Gloom, Boom and Doom Report says economies are creating volatility

Updated 5:52 PM EST, Fri, Jul 17, 2009

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We haven't seen the last of the crisis despite all talk about green shoots, and the surge in markets was caused by nothing more than the excess liquidity coming from central banks, Marc Faber, author of the Gloom, Boom and Doom Report, told CNBC Friday.

"If you pump money into the system and you create large fiscal deficits, you create volatility," Faber said.

"We've seen an intermediate low in March, we'll rally for a year or so or maybe 18 months… the ultimate crisis will happen much later, and the ultimate crisis would clean the system," he added.

Asked when this would be, he said he could not forecast a precise timing: "it may be 5 years time, 10 years time, but that's not the last crisis."

There are two opposing views, those who believe deflation is the big danger, with asset prices and demand collapsing, and those who think the biggest risk is inflation and a weak dollar, Faber said.

"In general in a crisis such as we have today where there is a deficiency of demand and huge overcapacity under normal conditions you would have deflation… now comes in the government and creates these huge deficits," he added as an explanation for his belonging to the "inflationists" camp.

"Already you have money-printers Mr. Bernanke and Mervyn King… we have never had this experiment in the history of mankind, all governments throwing money at the system," Faber said.

One way of dealing with the crisis would be to fire half the government workers in the world, "because if you shift government activity to the private sector the economy becomes more dynamic," he said.

"It's a transition time that is maybe painful. Why does California have these problems? It's not that there are too many teachers in California but the education department is very bloated," Faber added.

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