Former World Bank Pres. Wolfensohn Is `Pessimistic' on Banking Crisis, Sees $1 Trillion of Losses

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg News

April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Former World Bank President James Wolfensohn said he's ``pessimistic'' on the outlook for financial markets and predicted losses from the global credit turmoil may climb to $1 trillion.

``I'm more pessimistic than optimistic,'' Wolfensohn, 74, said an interview today in London. ``That doesn't necessarily mean a crash, but it means we're not through the woods yet. There are continued dangers.''

U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Robert Steel forecast last week that tighter credit conditions ``will take a while to work through.'' Banks worldwide have reported more than $309 billion of writedowns and credit losses caused by the U.S. subprime collapse and the seizure in credit markets.

``It does seem to be a major adjustment on any level,'' Wolfensohn said, after addressing the European Pensions and Savings Summit 2008. ``There may be a $1,000 billion worth of losses in it somewhere.'' He said he ``cannot recall anything similar, certainly in the last 30 to 40 years that I've worked.''

The International Monetary Fund predicts that losses from the crisis, including those tied to commercial real-estate, may total $945 billion and says global economic expansion may be the slowest since 2003 this year. Wolfensohn said the fund's loss forecast of about $1 trillion is now a ``consensus estimate.''



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=apWbGp4l2mVk&refer=home

[PATRICK]

1. Loaves and fishes

That Gospel story is how I characterize- with the perverse twists common to Mammon- the current manipulations to "rescue" crooked banks by having them in effect bail out each other with the solid example of the Fed pumping billions of our tax money into the "sharing". This miracle of course has one flaw. The Gospel miracle has been explained by the reasonable as people unloading their personal lunch baskets following the panic free example of the initial kick off loaves and fishes. Here there are really not enough loaves and fish. They don't exist. The Fed can supplement by printing more money, Pouring more of our national reserves into the game, importing Chinese and Middle Eastern owners into America. Still, the many extra baskets left over in the Gospels are the opposite of the imaginary money system. There is not enough, no Mammon God after the printing presses run out ink, no people with anything left to fill the fantasy.

What we exist on is really faith in Mammon, which does not really exist at all, not even as a single crust of bread. What they are trying to feed us on is pure story, an abstract lie, with nothing left over, people worldwide really starving, the phony news reporting phony success to stave off real panic, souls long ago auctioned off among the big guys that somehow survive.