ôLooks like weÆre in a financial crisis,ö says Marc Faber

ôThe severity of a downturn is proportional to the excesses that preceded it,ö began Marc Faber, leading off his speech to the CLSA conference in Hong Kong. He then pointed out those excesses, with the chief culprit in his opinion being the mistake of leaving the US federal funds rate at 1% until June 2004, three years after the US economic expansion began. That has led to a mis-pricing of capital and overly strong debt growth with a consequent diminishing of asset quality in financia…