Discussing whether Fed chief Bernanke was too honest with the markets, with Lawrence McDonald, Pangea Capital Management.

Despite my testimony last May and repeated warnings from Moody’s, S&P et al that the U.S. could lose its top credit rating with ongoing fiscal deficits and heavy debts, the platinum-plated AAA rating of the United States seemed all but untouchable…

In the debate that produced a surprising amount of general agreement Jan Hommen, CEO of ING, said that the financial crisis “has put financial institutions into the forefront of a global debate. “The world of finance can only work if we have trust in the institutions and in the system.”

This Thursday, the-beginning-of-the-end of Wall Street as we know it will kick off. Congressional Democrats and Republican leaders will begin the “Conference” process on combining the House and Senate finance reform bills.

Like a junkie that has to get a fix to maintain the same high, the U.S. Government deficit spending addiction has expanded for the last 30 years at approximately the same 10% compounded annual rate of the growth during the tumultuous three decades that included the Great Depression, World War II and the Cold War.

Last weekend I attended the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting in Omaha, which has become a Mecca for investors, packed with 25,000 shareholders from all over the world. I had never seen anything like it, in all my years in finance.

Goldman Sachs, the investment bank at the center of Capitol Hill’s wrath, makes most of its money trading and not really representing customers, Lawrence G. McDonald, managing director of Pangea Capital Management said on CNBC Wednesday, and that’s where the firm’s ethics is being questioned.

By Lawrence G. McDonald
We are on a collision course with a meteor and it’s not from outer space.
Almost 10 years after 9/11 and the Enron off-balance sheet accounting
scandal, what have we learned? The answer is …