Faber: Officials Are Not Telling the Truth About the US Economy

"The problem is that no officials in the US are telling the truth. Let me give you an example: The elderly statesman in Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, immediately said in last September, 'we're going to face very tough times; we have to tighten our belts to stay competitive.' This is something no president in the US will say: that you have to want for a few years, tighten your belts, and endure some pain in order to safeguard the country's economic health – for the sake of your children and for the sake of the nation as a whole.

Neither party in the US nor any elected government official dares to tell the electorate how disastrous conditions in the country have become. Ill-conceived policies by the last few administrations, Republicans as well as Democrats, were designed to stimulate consumptions. As a result of these policies, we will now have a period of subpar growth for quite some time. The government's policy should have been to stimulate capital formation, education, and R&D, and to encourage people to save.

If I had been Fed Chairman, I would have kept interest rates at a much higher level after 2001. I also wouldn't have cut interest rates as aggressively as Mr. Bernanke did after September 18, 2007. Don't forget, low interest rates actually hurt savers. There are a lot of people in America, like retirees, that have money on deposit, and now don't get much interest on their deposits. So it basically forces them to speculate.

If I were at the Treasury, I would let the financial institutions that overly leveraged themselves and gambled with other people's money, like AIG and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, go bankrupt. You can still protect depositors and the policyholders of these companies. But let the system, through the market mechanism, deal with the problem."