By Elliott Wave International

Let’s begin with a paradox: The one constant in our society is dramatic change. This is the main reason why projecting present conditions into the future often fails.

“If someone had asked you in 1972 to project the future of China, would anyone have said, in a single generation, they will be more productive than the United States and be a highly capitalist country?

“Project the U.S. space program in 1969, in fact many people did — there are plenty of papers you can read from 1969 to 1970 saying, well, it’s obvious at this pace we’ll both have colonies on the Moon very soon and we’ll have men on Mars…

“One could just as well ask someone to project, say, the Roman stock market in 100 A.D. I doubt if you’d have found anyone who said, well, it’s essentially going to go to zero.”

– Robert Prechter at the London School of Economics, lecture “Toward a New Science of Social Prediction.”

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By Editorial Staff

Over 100 banks are opening soon, buying junk bonds is gaining popularity and emerging markets are the trendy investment. Sound familiar? Europe appears to be returning to some bad investment habits.

The following is an excerpt from the February issue of Global Market Perspective. For a limited time, you can visit Elliott Wave International to download the rest of the 100+ page issue free.

Just as in 2007, huge bullishness in concert with no fear is cropping up. Central and Eastern European (CEE) debt markets, for example, are clearly back on investors’ radar. UniCredit of Italy plans to open 100 banks across the region, while Erste Bank of Austria is preparing 70 more in Romania. Raiffeisen International, also of Austria, is getting ready to launch an internet-based banking system to serve the region as well.

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The FDIC Anesthesia Is Wearing Off

By Robert Prechter

The following article is an excerpt from Robert Prechter’s Elliott Wave Theorist. For more information from Robert Prechter on bank safety, download his free report, Discover the Top 100 Safest U.S. Banks.

Perhaps the single greatest reason for the unbridled expansion of credit over the past 50 years is the existence of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, another government-sponsored enterprise created by Congress. The coming rush of bank failures is an outcome made inevitable the very day that Congress created the FDIC. The reason is that the creation of the FDIC allowed savers to believe that their deposits at banks are “insured” against loss.

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