We’ve already highlighted in this forum some of the concerns Robert Rodriguez of FCA Capital has shared publicly about the economy’s current course.
The latest Fortune magazine offers Rodriguez another opportunity to speak out about disturbing economic trends and policies.
[W]hen he was invited to address more than 1,000 mutual fund managers at a conference held by Morningstar in May 2009 — just when it looked as if the crisis had finally abated — Rodriguez gave himself only a brief pat on the back. Then he launched into a tirade, ripping into all of the parties involved in the meltdown. Fund managers, he said, had “stunk.” The federal stimulus programs were foolish and shortsighted, and regulators had lost all credibility. Worst of all, he said, was the ballooning U.S. debt, which had prompted him to stop buying long-term bonds from the “irresponsible and fiscally inept government.”
He continued in that fiery vein for almost an hour. When he was done, he stared out into an awkward and complete silence. Then it came: a thunderous standing ovation from the very fund managers he had just excoriated.
What does Rodriguez think now, two years later?
His new prophecy: If we don’t fix the budget – soon — the economy faces disaster. “I believe that within two to five years we’ll have a crisis of equal or greater magnitude of what we just went through,” he says. “And it will emanate from the federal level.”
