January 2, 2008 (LPAC)--There will for sure be a lot of financial pain, soon, wrote Daily Telegraph financial columnist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard today. For most of the past year, Evans-Pritchard has been echoing the forecasts by Lyndon LaRouche, that the current financial system has gone down.

Real estate bubbles will burst all over Europe, Evans-Pritchard wrote, a "version of the East Asia 1998 crisis [will hit] half the ex-Communist bloc"; Japan will crash due to an 18% rise of the yen against the dollar; but China will not be able to step into world lending, especially to emerging markets, because of "credit tightening and yuan appreciation" by Beijing.

Overall there will be massive rate cuts by the central banks, with inflation to follow. In the "Anglo-Saxon" sector of the world, the populations' personal losses will "mount to $1 trillion, entailing a $4 trillion contraction in lending." Everywhere else in Europe, the high euro will kill every economy outside Germany, and the euro accord will crack. French president Nicolas Sarkozy will react and increase his war against the European Central Bank, and the restrictions imposed by the Maastricht treaty, Evans-Pritchard wrote. Finally, Hillary Clinton will take the White House, with Democrats in control of both Houses.

Telegraph Business desk chief Damian Reece warned that Chancellor of the Exchequer Alastair Darling is not long for political office, after Northern Rock is nationalised. "Having succeeded the UK's longest continuously-serving Chancellor, Darling is likely to become one of the UK's shortest-serving Chancellors. He has to be favourite among the Cabinet to be moved on come a spring reshuffle."