What Caused The Global Financial Crisis according to Peter Tanous

The Global Financial Crisis according to Peter Tanous

Peter Tanous is President of Lepercq Lynx Investment Advisory, LLC (which manages over $1 billion) and his over forty-year career in the field of finance and money management has included positions with Bank Audi, Petra Capital Corporation, and Smith Barney. Tanous coathored Debt, Deficits, and the Demise of the American Economy (2011) and is also the author of the widely acclaimed 1999 book Investment Gurus.

2. Which narrative presented by Douglas Elliott and Martin Baily of the Brookings Institute in Telling the Narrative of the Financial Crisis: Not Just a Housing Bubble best represents the causes of the Financial Crisis?

“Everyone” was at fault: Wall Street, the government, and our wider society.

3. I believe the crisis is ongoing and I project the Global Financial Crisis will end in the year
2013 or beyond.

4. What were the primary causes of the Global Financial Crisis?
The single biggest cause of the crisis was the decline in home prices and the belief that home prices never decline (because in the history of the United States it had never happened before).

5. What still should change as a result of the crisis?
The United States must adopt a credible solution to the rising deficit before it becomes unsustainable and that day is fast approaching. If interest rates were to return to the historical average rate that the treasury pays in interest (5.7%), we would be paying $800 million more annually than we are paying today and that represents 80% of personal income taxes today.

Compiled by Gary Karz, CFA
Host of InvestorHome

Global Financial Crisis Survey

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