The Citygroup people undoubtably screwed up their own fiances. No argument there. They gambled with monies, 3X the US GDP, an lost.

However, to dismiss their warnings as joke and "apocalyptic" is something people do at their own peril. I personally sincerely hope that Citygroup and the other analysts are wrong in making such dire preditions but, can't help my own logic agreeing with them. They said that it was either:

1) Future inflationary forces
2) Depression with social unrest and/or wars

If you consider the amounts of debt that has been piled on within this short time and, seem to increase by huge chunks every week, one must be hard pressed to imagine that it could ever be paid off without the help of massive inflationary forces. This is their predicted favored scenario but, at the same time, depression is also an ever larger looming possibility. I hope that Obama's truly massive work programs will keep us out it but, again, it has to came at the expense of inflation.

A good number of analysts warned well ahead of this financial disaster and have been right on target with their predictions. I have warned here that the stock market could collapse easily 50 percent, or more. Roscoe even placed the declines into rather precise time frames. Still, as I read the on and off sour posts from LL posters, mighty few listened to the caution and advice and have now accumulated sizable losses in their investments. In the meantime, I am way positive in my investments during the same negative market periods.

Again, as before, I simply conveyed some caution about possible hard times ahead and leave it to the reader to make jokes of it or to use it as seen fit.  I, for myself, now have a decent cushion invested in gold ETF Trusts which, I did not purchase for their money making opportunities but, as insurance against the kinds of forces that are generating some really threatening clouds on the horizon.

Albert