The Financial Post ran an article on Juggling Dynamite on Saturday under the inappropriate and misleading title: “Doomsday ahead, author claims.” It article's author Jonathon Chevreau this morning posted an explanation on his blog site saying that he did not pick the headline.
I was glad to see this correction and my response to his blog was as follows below:
Dear Jon, thank you for this correction today. The headline was not accurate or fair. I certianly never would say I see “doomsday ahead.” My friends have now been jokingly calling me “Dr. Death” since your column Saturday.
There is an unfortunate tendency of some to discount a person as a perma-bear or a dark horse if one feels the need to express some caution or highlight risks which the market may not yet be accurately pricing. In general our world is starved for critical thought and especially in the financial world.
This has always been the case through history in fact. As you know, I discuss this issue in my book. I guess the person who picked the headline was unwittingly helping me to make my point about the sensational tendency of some business media.
I was interested to see the opening story on “60 minutes” last night where the US Secretary of the Treasury-the country's head accountant, has taken it upon himself to tour the US warning citizens that their government leaders are spending the country into bankruptcy unless immediate major cuts are made to expenses and increases are made to taxes. He pointed out that to fund current entitlement committments, the US government would need to have 6 trillion dollars currently invested in Treasury Bills to have the money needed to fund their health and social committments alone. They presently have zero set aside for this looming liability. I was heartened to see that 60 minutes reported his sober news without labelling him as doomsday or dark. These are serious and real issues that cannot be discounted that easily.
Lastly, I would like to correct for the record, that the closing quote in your article was actually edited to the point of misstating what I had said. My quote was that few people in the financial sales world can afford to have clients leave equities markets since the industry fees tend to drop off dramatically if clients move to cash.
Best wishes, D (aka “Dr. Death”)
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