[who to listen to] one of the traders or not

This man, Simon Cawkwell, is making a killing on the crisis and has his views on the immediate future:

He may be a gambler through and through, but he says even he would never have attempted the "mad gamble" of the British Government over the past decade. He reserves particular criticism for Prime Minister Gordon Brown's actions in his time as a finance minister, blaming him for making cheap credit too easily available.

"People have been deceived on a massive scale," he says. "Brown knew about all of this. It was a mad gamble to keep on expanding credit forever but you cannot expand credit forever." He foresees deep problems ahead. "I expect massive unemployment. There will be deep impoverishment and bankruptcies," he says. "I really think it can lead to a civil unrest. It is really very serious. We're talking about people whose lives are shattered."

But, if the worst comes to pass, Cawkwell can see only one outcome for him personally. "I shall make a good deal of money," he says.

How much weight to place on his words? Well, he's in the market and so knows it from the buyer/seller point of view. I wonder how much he knows of the political agenda though? I mean the real agenda, the loony "hidden mysteries" stuff which I have looked into. I think he wouldn't know much of that - pragmatists can't get their minds round such seeming craziness.

Either way, his prediction and the loony agenda happen to coincide for the present.