A lot of people in politics and in the financial world know what is about to happen. Once in a while they will even be quite candid about it with the media.

#1 George Soros: "Financial markets are driving the world towards another Great Depression with incalculable political consequences. The authorities, particularly in Europe, have lost control of the situation."

#2 PIMCO CEO Mohammed El-Eria...n: "These are all signs of an institutional run on French banks. If it persists, the banks would have no choice but to delever their balance sheets in a very drastic and disorderly fashion. Retail depositors would get edgy and be tempted to follow trading and institutional clients through the exit doors. Europe would thus be thrown into a full-blown banking crisis that aggravates the sovereign debt trap, renders certain another economic recession, and significantly worsens the outlook for the global economy."

#3 Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy, global head of securities services at UniCredit SpA (Italy's largest bank): "The only remaining question is how many days the hopeless rearguard action of European governments and the European Central Bank can keep up Greece’s spirits."

#4 Stefan Homburg, the head of Germany's Institute for Public Finance: "The euro is nearing its ugly end. A collapse of monetary union now appears unavoidable."

#5 EU Parliament Member Nigel Farage: "I think the worst in the financial system is yet to come, a possible cataclysm and if that happens the gold price could go (higher) to a number that we simply cannot, at this moment, even imagine."

#6 Carl Weinberg, the chief economist at High Frequency Economics: "At this point, our base case is that Greece will default within weeks."

#7 Goldman Sachs strategist Alan Brazil: "Solving a debt problem with more debt has not solved the underlying problem. In the US, Treasury debt growth financed the US consumer but has not had enough of an impact on job growth. Can the US continue to depreciate the world’s base currency?"

#8 International Labour Organization director general Juan Somavia recently stated that total unemployment could "increase by some 20m to a total of 40m in G20 countries" by the end of 2012.

#9 Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackerman: "It is an open secret that numerous European banks would not survive having to revalue sovereign debt held on the banking book at market levels."

#10 Alastair Newton, a strategist for Nomura Securities in London: "We believe that we are just about to enter a critical period for the eurozone and that the threat of some sort of break-up between now and year-end is greater than it has been at any time since the start of the crisis"

#11 Ann Barnhardt, head of Barnhardt Capital Management, Inc.: "It's over. There is no coming back from this. The only thing that can happen is a total and complete collapse of EVERYTHING we now know, and humanity starts from scratch. And if you think that this collapse is going to play out without one hell of a big hot war, you are sadly, sadly mistaken."

#12 Lakshman Achuthan of ECRI: "When I call a recession...that means that process is starting to feed on itself, which means that you can yell and scream and you can write a big check, but it's not going to stop."