Let's hope this market prediction doesn't come true

Dour predictions from financial analyst Marc Faber -- prepare for a market meltdown:

The markets are going to go into meltdown soon, so expect stocks to lose 20 percent of their value, Marc Faber, author of the Gloom, Boom and Doom report told CNBC on Tuesday.

“I don’t think markets are going down because of Greece, I don’t think markets are going down because of the ‘fiscal cliff’ — because there won’t be a ‘fiscal cliff,’ ” Faber told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “The market is going down because corporate profits will begin to disappoint, the global economy will hardly grow next year or even contract, and that is the reason why stocks, from the highs of September of 1,470 on the S&P, will drop at least 20 percent, in my view.” [...]

Faber argued that the “fiscal cliff,” a rise in taxes and automatic spending cuts, would actually involve some minor tax increases in “five years’ time” and some spending cuts “in 100 years.”

What the U.S. needed was some pain, he said, aptly demonstrated by the euro zone’s austerity measures that are attempting, with a mixed measure of success, to curb gaping budget deficits.

“There will be pain and there will be very substantial pain. The question is do we take less pain now through austerity or risk a complete collapse of society in five to 10 years’ time?” he said, adding that there was a lack of political will to tackle the U.S. budget.