Peter Navarro

Remember how the $789 billion stimulus package and the banking bailout under the direction of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner were supposed to restore confidence to the economy? Think again.

As the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dipped to less than 8,000 points in the wake of Geithner's TARP II announcement on Feb. 10, CNBC contributor and UC-Irvine Professor of Economics and Public Policy Peter Navarro warned that it's the sign of a new floor for stock market index. He predicted the Dow to go to 6,000 on CNBC's Feb. 13 "Squawk on the Street." 

"We got the market top in November 2007 at about 14,000 on the Dow," Navarro explained to co-host Mark Haines. "And we went down to 8,000 over the course of the year. We've been in this sideways pattern since until recently at 8,000. We put the fiscal stimulus in place. We put the bank bailout in place. The market says we don't like it. We break that critical support level."

Panicky protectionists are predicting some unsavory possibilities for the U.S. economy thanks to emerging foreign economies with newly created wealth to invest.

Although they're unlikely possibilities, CBS's April 6 "60 Minutes" delved into the potential threat one Chinese sovereign wealth fund might pose to the American economy.

"All together, the sovereign wealth funds of countries like Abu Dhabi and Kuwait have spent over $30 billion bailing out our financial system, which has raised some troubling questions," CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl said. "Are these mostly undemocratic regimes saving Wall Street or invading it? One fund is of special concern - it's new, highly secretive and the fifth largest in the world."