prepare for a us market crash

http://biz.yahoo.com/fool/060925/115919648505.html

Prepare for a U.S. Market Crash
Monday September 25, 11:01 am ET
By Anders Bylund


We're heading into a recession. You've heard about it for months, even years, what with the housing bubble, the war in Iraq, overextended consumer credit -- you name it. A recent Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER - News) report says that the U.S. economy will grow by only 1.9% next year, down from 3.4% this year, and slower than the global growth rate of 5.2%. Even slowpoke Europe should pass us at 2.1%, though the U.S. is ahead of the average European GDP growth rate of 2.7%.
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If these numbers are even close to reality, your next course of action should be obvious: Invest somewhere else for a while. The good folks behind that report suggest Japan, India, and Brazil as eminently suitable targets.

What's more, they expect that interest rate differences will cause the dollar to lose value against the yen, Chinese renminbi, and Scandinavian currencies, which means that even mediocre businesses in those regions should produce decent share-price returns over here, thanks to the magic of currency conversion.

Investing guru Warren Buffett seems to agree with the Merrill team. His Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A - News; NYSE: BRK-B - News) just bought its first-ever foreign firm and dropped hints about looking for more. The insurance, fast-food, and underwear conglomerate (among other things) picked up an 80% stake in Israeli toolmaker Iscar Metalworking for $4 billion, and Buffett said that he's facing increased competition from global-minded private equity firms. "They may end up buying some businesses we would have liked to have bought instead," he said.