WA Times: Volcker sees US Economic Disaster by March 2014

From the Washington Times dated October 25, 2012. All bolded emphasis is mine.

The central problem is that America is the bank of the world. What this means, simply, is that the dollar is the world’s currency (often termed the “reserve currency”). Throughout the world, nearly all traded goods, oil, major commodities, real estate, etc., are denominated in dollars. The world needs dollars, and the U.S. provides them and provides confidence that the dollar is the “safest” currency in the world. Countries get dollars by trading with us on attractive terms, which enables Americans to live very well. Countries support this system and cover their risk by investing in dollars through T-bill auctions and other mechanisms, which enables us to run budget deficits — up to a point.
The central issue is confidence in America, and the world is losing confidence quickly. At a certain point, soon, the United States will reach a level of deficit spending and debt at which the countries of the world will lose faith in America and begin to withdraw their investments. Many leading economists and bankers think another trillion dollars or so may do it. A run on the bank will start suddenly, build quickly and snowball.

At that point, we will need to finance our own deficit, and we will not be able to do so. We will raise bond rates to re-attract foreign investment, interest rates will go up, and businesses will fail. Unemployment will skyrocket. The rest of the world will fully crash along with us. Europe will continue to decline, and the euro will not replace the dollar. Russia will see a collapse in oil prices as market demand softens, and Russia will collapse along with it. China will find nowhere to export and also will collapse. The Russian and Chinese governments, which see all this coming and have been stockpiling gold to hedge against such a dollar collapse, will find that you cannot eat gold. There will be uprisings — think of the streets in Spain and Greece today — everywhere. Technological advances that traditionally drive productivity increases and economic growth will not be able to keep up with this collapse.

When might this all happen? Paul Volker indicates we might face a mess like this in the next year and a half. David Walker, former U.S. comptroller, i.e., the former chief accountant of the U.S. government, has suggested similar time frames for economic catastrophe. Most agree that the budget sequestration approach won’t work from either economic or political perspectives, and mindless across-the-board cuts in spending will only exacerbate a mess. The Federal Reserve’s third round of quantitative easing, in which we print money to buy our own bonds in order to goose economic and employment numbers, means we are floating our own debt, a good formula for sudden hyperinflation.

The Washington Times does  not provide further detail the source of its claims. But what got my attention was not just the upcoming March 2014 date but the recent decision by the Fed to continue the $85 Billion per month QE program. They were widely expected to begin tapering. Clearly they do not yet see enough strength to even begin tapering! This should be a flashing red light to anyone with investment assets. This is especially true in light of the fact that the 10 US Treasury has yield has nearly doubled in the last six months demonstrating the Fed, who is trying to maintain low yields as a stimulus to the US economy, has begun to lose control despite the $85 Billion per month of money printing.