The same
kind of fear so rampant in the heartland of America with Doomsday Preppers, the
planet’s middle class is cashing out of the rigged casino games of stock markets
and their phony brand of capitalism.
"My brokers said they were really safe, but they weren't," says Stonecipher, 59, a substitute school teacher.
Americans sold the most in the five years after the crisis—$521 billion, or 9 percent of their mutual fund holdings, according to Lipper. But investors in other countries sold a larger share of their holdings: Germans dumped 13 percent; Italians and French, more than 16 percent each.
The French are "not very oriented to risk," says Cyril Blesson, an economist at Pair Conseil, an investment consultancy in Paris. "Now, it's even worse."
It's gotten worse in China, Russia and the U.K., too.
Fu Lili, 31, a psychologist in Fu Xin, a city in northeastern China, says she made 20,000 yuan ($3,267) buying and selling stocks before the crisis, more than 10 times her monthly salary then. But she won't touch them now, because she's too scared.
In Moscow, Yuri Shcherbanin, 32, a manager for an oil company, says the crash proved stocks were dangerous and he should content himself with money in the bank.
If the system keeps cheating the rubes, guess what? The rubes stay away from the rigged game.
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