ART CASHIN: It's During Times Like These I Think About How World War I Started

Art Cashin, UBS Financial Services Director of Floor Operations, has been working on Wall Street for over 50 years.

But in a new interview with Eric King of King World News, Cashin reveals that he often thinks about an event that happened long before he began his career: World War I.

Today, he's reminded of it because of all of the complacency he sees in the markets despite tremendous geopolitcal tensions.

Here's Cashin's response to a question about what concerns him most:

“I’m still concerned about geopolitics. Here in this business I have learned that the story which seems to be buried on page 13 can sometimes almost instantly rocket its way on to page 1, and rocket its way to everyone’s attention. But perhaps the greatest concern I have, Eric, is that there is a kind of complacency.

There seems to be an almost palpable belief around the world that cooler heads will prevail. Someone will step in and stop this from happening. And while it happened even before I began my 50 year career, I’ve long been a student of history, both financial and geopolitical, and I think back to World War I when everyone on both sides knew that such a war would be unwinnable, would be distasteful, but managed to walk into it believing that logic would prevent the guy on the other side from making a fatal mistake.

So whether it is exercises in Korea or economic changes in Europe, the idea that rational men will prevent irrational crises doesn’t live up to world history.”

Cashin also shares his thoughts on the recent events in Cyprus. Read about it at KingWorldNews.com.