Get ready to relive the 2008 crisis: Albert Edwards

30-Jul (CNBC) — Central banks in the Western world have set the scene for an “even bigger version” of the 2007-2008 global financial crisis, Societe Generale’s bearish strategist Albert Edwards has claimed.

In a research note on Thursday, Edwards said that China’s intervention to stabilize its volatile stock market was part of a larger global story, in which “rock bottom” interest rates and large fiscal deficits in the western world were pushing the global economy towards a fall.

“QE (quantitative easing) will be stepped up to such a pace that you will hear the roar of the printing presses from Mars,” Edwards said.

“I have not one scintilla of doubt that the western central banks have set us up for an even bigger version of the 2008 Great Financial Crisis.”

…Given his forecast step up in money-printing, Edwards said that gold, which tends to perform well during periods of high inflation, was a “must-have” safe-haven investment.

[source]