Jim Willie: The Collapse Is At Our Doorstep

Jim Willie is not one for holding back and in his latest interview with Silverdoctors sums up where the global financial system currently stands. With each passing week the situation worsens. Willie see a global financial collapse now close at hand and the endgame will be triggered by a small-medium sized bank failure in Europe.

The European collapse will ignite a global Gold rush as the only remaining safe haven ultimately ending  USdollar as worlds reserve currency.

  The Doc began by asking the Golden Jackass what will most likely be the trigger event for a complete systemic collapse:

 I don’t think we’re going to see a default as a trigger event in gold or silver. I didn’t say we won’t see a gold and silver default, I said that it won’t be the trigger. There are just too many deep sources for gold that the central banks have access to. I refer to Basel Switzerland, the Roman catacombs, and the BOE, I think they’re pretty close to the bottom of their gold barrel, but they have big powerful friends in Rome and Basel Switzerland.

The trigger is not even going to come from within the US, because it’s just so controlled- the markets are being controlled from multiple different centers, in particular the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Dept, JPM, Goldman Sachs.

It’s just so corrupt to the core, and we’re seeing a blossoming of the fascist business model and the corruption that’s accepted.

Attention should be drawn to Europe. Look at some of the most recent events that are really quite staggering.

The Italian elections kicked out the GSax preppy Mario Monti. I’m surprised that he’s not being thrown off a palace balcony. It’s directly in response to hikes that Monti imposed on property tax to finance the bankers! The Italian people have a much more effective political system than the US!

Italy actually has elected a comedian! This is like electing John Belushi to form a coalition government! Mario Monti is on the way out. What does that mean?

The defense of their dead banks with liquidity lines and property tax hikes will end in the near future!

In Spain you have new high level financial corruption events that have paralyzed the nation at a time when they’ve already seen a string of big financial firm failures!

This at a time where they have 25% unemployment. I think that the likelihood of violence on the streets is greater in Spain than in any other country.

Spain’s bank insolvency and wretched unemployment is causing tremendous distress, and there will be a breaking point there.

Then in France you have Hollande, the leader of the socialist clowns has raised the highest tax brackets to 90%. The resulting capital flight to Scandinavia is astounding, leaving the nation extremely vulnerable.

Then you have the German economic slowdown which is really capturing some attention, which will remove ability and patience of bank rescues.

Then you have the London banks which are joined by French banks in broad deep exposure to Southern Europe. They’ve set themselves up to have their heads cut off.

Recall that the Draghi solutions like LTRO were recently insulted by debt downgrades, which was unprecedented.

Then you have the USFed, which is the only buyer of USTBonds, and the Euro Central Bank as the only buyer of PIIGS Govt Bonds.

Here is a note as to the stress in the system: the European banking system received $1.2 trillion in Dollar Swap funds from the NY Fed in January alone to prop up the ECB banking system.

European banks are collectively much larger than the US banks, but are in suspended animation while the US banks are being supported by narcotics money laundering.

A big European bust is coming. When the European bust events occur, the mad scramble for safety will be on, and they’re not going to be looking for Switzerland any longer because of their Euro peg. A massive rise in the European gold price is coming and it will be staggering, shocking and not reversible. It will ignite a global Gold rush, a massive short covering rally, and powerful 30% to 50% rise in the gold price will come in response to the European collapse.

Following that will come the arrival of the Gold Trade Finance platforms. Gold settlement for trade across the world- primarily though coming out of the East.

In other words, trade involving two parties not involving the US, one of them being an Eastern nation, and they will settle not in dollars anymore, they will settle in gold, and they will have some help from their friends in Turkey.

We’re going to see an end to the USDollar reserve status following these events, and the funeral will have a speech given by the Saudis to bring an end to the Petro-Dollar itself.

You have to look to Europe and not to the US, the US is a joke in regards to crisis, management, propaganda, the ESF, narcotics money laundering, sponsored fraud, it’s just unbelievable what’s going on in the US, it’s not going to be the trigger, the trigger will be Europe.

We have 15 to 20 potential sites to force the breakdown. It’s not just one or two. Every couple months there are a few more potential areas to cause the breakdown. That’s very, very dangerous, and new. We didn’t see that 3-5 years ago. Back in 07 it was really just sub-prime. We have about 12 different areas now which are just as dangerous as sub-prime, and both of them are in Europe.

 

With QE4 and the recent return of NINJA loans as the Fed attempts to re-inflate the housing bubble, The Doc asked Willie whether the Fed would be able to kick the can down the road one more time with one last bubble:

They have 15-20 fingers and toes, but there are just too many different areas that they need to plug.
This real estate bubble is a joke.  There’s no new bubble coming or even on the horizon.  What we’ve got is the US government has sponsored a whole new round of sub-prime mortgages.  Expect instead of the big banks underwriting them, it’s the Federal government.  We have not seen a rebound in demand for housing, even though the 30 year mortgage rate is under 4% and has been for quite a few months.

What’s not shown in the press is that there’s still 10 million homes that are sitting on the bank balance sheets.  They’re called REO’s, and they’re selling their REO’s or short sales, which ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THE CASE SHILLER INDEX! 

It’s a parallel of the discouraged workers no longer included in unemployment!  They’re bringing labor market calculations to the housing market.  They’re not going to revive the housing bubble for a simple reason- there’s not widespread finance available, it’s exclusively coming out of the FHA.  The other reason is that people have a great distrust for buying homes after they saw so many people foreclosed on.  Another reason is that the people don’t have brisk income.
The factors are not there, it’s kind of a lunatic claim to state that the housing market is going to be re-bubbalized.  Not even close, it’s stuck in a depression!

 

 

The Doc asked Jim whether we face a lost two decades like the Japanese, or what type of collapse we face in the US:

 

I said this back when Lehman Brothers fell in the autumn of 2008.  The US is on a path that cannot escape systemic failure and total dependence on the printing press to cover its debt and for a debt default of the US government debt, which will come in the form of a global conference to organize and co-ordinate the debt write down.  There will be US military outside the room to make sure everyone complies.

If the US goes ahead with sequester cuts, they’re talking about $4 trillion over 10 years.  I cannot emphasize how small that is.  But let’s go through some of the points why I believe the collapse is at our doorstep:

The collapse is happening now- it’s no longer ultra-slow motion like 2 years ago.   It’s a new event every few days or weeks.  The pace is quickening.   

The extreme nature of current events is alarming.  Just in the last few months:

The US Fed announces every month their extension of 0% forever (denigrating their own exit Strategy talk).

 $1.2 trillion was doled out by the USFed to European banks in January alone!

We have the Germans demanding repatriation of their official gold account (Allocated Accounts).

We have the Italians electing a comedian like John Belushi to halt the property tax hikes that bail out banks.  This is an insult to their entire political system which experienced that Mario Monti appointment without an election.

We have the London banks recently sponsoring a Chinese Yuan Swap Facility, cow-towing to Asia.  This is unprecedented!  New York will not do such a thing, but London did, which means that London and NY might be at odds!

We have an attack announced on Mali in North Africa to wrest gold & uranium timed when the  Germans asked for repayment of their gold reserves.  The quantities really fit.  There was a suspicious comment by the French and British saying it will be repaid in 7 years.  300 tons over 7 years is approximately what Mali produces in gold that will cover almost exactly the German repayment.  That was organized by France and the US. 

We have the shutdown of the gigantic Mongolian copper & gold mine by Rio Tinto which is an example of resource nationalism. 

We have raids larger and bolder of the GLD inventory that prevents a COMEX default and will produce a bigger price discount vs. the spot for GLD shares.  I think it will go down towards a 20% discount, which will cause alot of problems. 

We have the USFed preparing for QE5 (or rather QE187, as in QE to Infinity). 

We have events like the major central banks losing credibility while engaging in open currency war.  The franchise system of central banks is being questioned.  They’re in battle with each other. 

We have the US facing a fiscal cliff, which forces a quantum leap in job cuts (recession alert).

We have the Japanese ratcheting up the competitive currency devaluations (only USTBond buyer).

We have the Swiss managing their Euro-Franc peg, but suffering losses in Japanese & British bonds.

We have the Russians hosting a G-20 Meeting to coordinate the alternative to US$-based trade.
THEY ARE NOT GOING TO CONTINUE WITH DOLLAR BASED TRADE SETTLEMENTS!  NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!

We have the emergence of Turkey and soon India as gold trade finance intermediaries.  They’re going to supply 1 of 2 parties engaged in trade with gold so they can make the settlement of the trade. 

We have the Iranian sanctions coming to a conclusion in US acquiescence.  The US is surrendering to the Iranians! 
All these events have occurred just since the new year began less than two months ago!  The pace of extreme events is quickening!

Extreme events have become the norm, putting tremendous additional stress on the system which the boys are trying to manage.  They don’t have enough people, enough resources, enough channels, and they don’t have enough brains to do it.

The managed system cannot succeed, it’s too complex.  They are attempting to work towards a system of total system management, and it’s just not going to work.

A series of climax events is coming very soon.  The changes will be rapid and breath-taking. 

Vast wealth has been moving East the past 3-4 years, and with it great power. 
Look for some seemingly minor bank failure to cause a ripple effect of deeper damage. 
It’s going to involve larger banks tied with commitments such as counter-party contracts or intermediary supply functions, and things are just going to start wrecking. 

I think vast wealth is going to be lost in the US and the West, except by gold and silver owners. 
Owning gold and silver will become harder to do because the rules are becoming stricter.
Those who have set themselves up in the last few years are going to be the big, big winners, and the ones who are bold enough and brave enough to do it now are going to be glad for their actions. 

I have a family member who refused my advice three years ago, and now that family member is facing the conversion of her very large privately managed IRA pension fund into these new special Treasury bonds.  That’s going to cause a real firestorm by the public, and they’re going to wish that they had converted their IRA’s into a gold account.

Source: SilverDoctors

TYT: Financial Armageddon – Swaps Redefined As Futures

This Time Its Different

ZeroHedge posted the following chart looking at the relationship between ISM new orders and unemployment rates. Of course this time its different 😉

CEO Of Saxo Bank Says Euro Is Doomed

Another name added to the list of people who believe the end of the euro is a matter of time. Lars Seier Christensen the co CEO of Saxo Bank has delivered his frank views on the euro.

Lars Seier Christensen, co-chief executive officer of Danish bank Saxo Bank A/S, said the euro’s recent rally is illusory and the shared currency is set to fail because the continent hasn’t supported it with a fiscal union.

“The whole thing is doomed,” Christensen said yesterday in an interview at the bank’s Dubai office. “Right now we’re in one of those fake solutions where people think that the problem is contained or being addressed, which it isn’t at all.”

………..

While the euro has strengthened, the economies of Germany, France and Italy all shrank more than estimated in the fourth quarter. Ministers from the 17-member euro area met during the week to discuss aid to Cyprus and Greece as a tightening election contest in Italy and a political scandal in Spain threaten to reignite the region’s debt crisis.

“I’d be a bigger seller of the euro at anything near 1.4,” according to Christensen, who said he isn’t making any speculative bets against the currency.

France is the danger ahead.

“Another possible fallout is getting rid of some of the countries that are being ruined by being in the euro, notably the southern European economies,” Christensen said. “People have been dramatically underestimating the problems the French are going to get from this. Once the French get into a full- scale crisis, it’s over. Even the Germans cannot pay for that one and probably will not.”

………..

“It’s the political world that has been extremely supportive of the euro, not for economic reasons but for political reasons,” said Christensen, a long-time critic of the single currency who now lives in Switzerland.

Source: Bloomberg

 

 

 

 

Nearing The End Of Debt Based Economy – Its Going To Be Messy.

Jeff Berwick of the Dollar Vigilante sums up economic future ahead, whereby the US will be ground zero for the economic collapse.

British Economy Now Worse Than When In The Great Depression

A few days ago Max Keiser on the BBC’s flagship Daily Politics show explained why in his opinion the UK economy is “screwed”. The Washington’s Blog has put forward its reasons for why the UK is in a worse position now than it was in the Great Depression. As usual, a chart can say it best and the velocity of money graph below does just that.

Royal Bank of Scotland Says Worst Economy Since Before Queen Victoria Was Crowned

Leading British newspaper the Telegraph reports today:

Ministers today admitted Britain is facing “very, very grave difficulties” after figures showed the economy did not grow at all in 2012.

***

Economists from the Royal Bank of Scotland said the last four years have produced the worst economic performance in a non post-war period since records started being collected in the 1830s.

***

“It’s the worst economic performance since at least 1830, outside of post-war demobilisations,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “It’s worse than the 1920s, it’s worse than the Great Depression.”

He said the economy has been “heading this way for a long time” because of the scale of the problems that came to a head in the 2008 financial crash.

***

The top economist at RBS, which is mostly owned by the Government, said it is difficult to recover when much of the world is facing similar problems.

“It’s the scale of what happened in 2008 but also the build-up to that,” he said. “Compared with other recessions [like in the 1980s and 1990s], this is happening all over the world. There’s not a quick and easy way to export your way out of this.”

(In a separate article, the Telegraph notes that the UK is heading for an unprecedented triple dip, as its economy shrunk .3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012).

We’ve repeatedly warned that this is worse than the Great Depression …

What Do Economic Indicators Say?

We’ve repeatedly pointed out that there are many indicators which show that the last 5 years have been worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s, including:

• The housing slump

• The bank charge off rate

• The collapse in world trade

• The withdrawal of short-term credit

• The level of inequality between rich and poor (too much inequality destroys economies)

• The interconnectedness of financial systems and economies worldwide (interconnectedness leads to financial instability)

• Runaway spending and greed

Mark McHugh reports:

Velocity of money is the frequency with which a unit of money is spent on new goods and services. It is a far better indicator of economic activity than GDP, consumer prices, the stock market, or sales of men’s underwear (which Greenspan was fond of ogling). In a healthy economy, the same dollar is collected as payment and subsequently spent many times over. In a depression, the velocity of money goes catatonic. Velocity of money is calculated by simply dividing GDP by a given money supply. This VoM chart using monetary base should end any discussion of what ”this” is and whether or not anybody should be using the word “recovery” with a straight face:

In just four short years, our “enlightened” policy-makers have slowed money velocity to depths never seen in the Great Depression.

(As we’ve previously explained, the Fed has intentionally squashed money multipliers and money velocity as a way to battle inflation. And see this)

Indeed, the number of Americans relying on government assistance to obtain basic food may be higher now that during the Great Depression. The only reason we don’t see “soup lines” like we did in the 30s is because of the massive food stamp program.

And while apologists for government and bank policy point to unemployment as being better than during the 1930s, even that claim is debatable.

What Do Economists Say?

Indeed, many economists agree that this could be worse than the Great Depression, including:

• Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke

• Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan (and see this and this)

• Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker

• Economics scholar and former Federal Reserve Governor Frederic Mishkin

• The head of the Bank of England Mervyn King (and see this)

• Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz

• Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman

• Former Goldman Sachs chairman John Whitehead

• Economics professors Barry Eichengreen and and Kevin H. O’Rourke (updated here)

• Investment advisor, risk expert and “Black Swan” author Nassim Nicholas Taleb

• Well-known PhD economist Marc Faber

• Morgan Stanley’s UK equity strategist Graham Secker

• Former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae Edward J. Pinto

• Billionaire investor George Soros

• Senior British minister Ed Balls

Bad Policy Has Us Stuck

We are stuck in a depression because the government has done all of the wrong things, and has failed to address the core problems.

Instead of bringing in new legs, we keep on recycling the same old re-treads who caused the problem in the first place.

For example:

• An economics professor says we’ll have “a never-ending depression unless we repudiate the debt, which never should have been extended in the first place”

• Fraud was one of the main causes of the Depression, but nothing has been done to rein in fraud today. Indeed, the only action the government is taking is to help cover up fraud

• All leading independent economists have said that the economy cannot recover until the big, insolvent banks are broken up, but the government has just helped them to get bigger

• Excessive leverage helped cause the Great Depression and the current crisis, but the government has encouraged more leverage

• The Federal Reserve caused the Great Depression and the current crisis, and has done nothing but help the fatcats at the expense of the little guy. And yet the government has given the Fed more power than ever.

• Government policies send manufacturing jobs and dollars abroad

• Quantitative easing isn’t helping … it’s only making things worse.

• The government is doing everything else wrong, as well. See this and this

This isn’t an issue of left versus right … it’s corruption and bad policies which help the super-elite but are causing a depression for the vast majority of the people.

Source: Washinton’s Blog

UK Economy Is Screwed

Trust Max Keiser to say it straight in this clip from the BBC’s Daily Politics when asked about the state of the UK’s economy. A quick 4min clip, but key points are as follows:

• UK made the wrong decision in supporting bondholders and banks instead of the economy.
• Bond market on verge of collapsing.
• Sterling is selling off.
• Bond yields are moving up.
• Rating agencies are going to downgrade the UK.
• Borrowing costs will rise which will affect mortgages.
• All currencies are depreciating against Gold.
• Gold is becoming the World’s Reserve Currency.
• Sterling heading for sharp devaluation which won’t help exports.

US: Fiscal Disaster Up Ahead

Excellent video presentation from McAlvaney Wealth Management of the fiscal disaster up ahead and how to prepare for it.

2013: Let The Currency Wars Truely Begin

Up until now the G20 countries were shafting each other quietly through various means of currency devaluation. Many new terms for printing money were added to the lexicon. Lately the rhetoric has begun to get more aggressive. ZeroHedge writes of the Russia’s Central Bank Chief’s warning that “the world is on the brink of a fresh currency war”. Along with gold repatriation stories, 2013 is shaping up to be a tough year ahead for Central Bankers.

It will not come as a surprise to anyone who has spent more than a few cursory minutes reading ZeroHedge over the past few years (back in 2009, then 2010, and most recently here, and here) but the rolling ‘beggar thy neighbor’ currency strategies of world central banks are gathering pace. To wit, Bloomberg reports that energy-bound Russia’s central bank chief appears to have broken ranks warning that “the world is on the brink of a fresh ‘currency war’.” With Japan openly (and actively) verbally intervening to depress the JPY and now Juncker’s “dangerously high” comments on the EUR yesterday, it appears 2013 will be the year when the G-20 finance ministers (who agreed to ‘refrain from competitive devaluation of currencies’ in 2009) tear up their promises and get active. Rhetoric is on the rise with the Bank of Korea threatening “an active response”, Russia now suggesting reciprocal devaluations will occur (and hurt the global economy) as RBA Governor noted that there is “a degree of disquiet in the global policy-making community.” Critically BoE Governor Mervyn King has suggested what only conspiracists have offered before: “we’ll see the growth of actively managed exchange rates,” and sure enough where FX rates go so stocks will nominally follow (see JPY vs TOPIX and CHF vs SMI recently).

Via Bloomberg:

The world is on the brink of a fresh “currency war,” Russia warned, as European policy makers joined Japan in bemoaning the economic cost of rising exchange rates.

“Japan is weakening the yen and other countries may follow,”

 …

 The push for weaker currencies is being driven by a need to find new sources of economic growth as monetary and fiscal policies run out of room. The risk is as each country tries to boost exports, it hurts the competitiveness of other economies and provokes retaliation.

 Yesterday “will go down as the first day European policy makers fired a shot in the 2013 currency war,” said Chris Turner, head of foreign-exchange strategy at ING Groep NV in London.

 …

 The skirmish may lead to a clash of G-20 finance ministers and central banks when they meet next month in Moscow, three months after reiterating their 2009 pledge to “refrain from competitive devaluation of currencies.”

 While emerging markets have repeatedly complained about strong currencies as a result of easy monetary policies in the west, the engagement of richer nations is adding a new dimension to what Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega first dubbed a currency war in 2010.

Source: ZeroHedge

Jan 2013: 20 Facts About The Euro Collapse

The lamestream media are hell-bent on covering up the real state of the euro zone, even going onto to praising Mario Draghi for his money printing powers as the EU claps itself on the back for getting a bizarre Nobel Peace prize. The following article helps to bring some focus on whats really happening under the veneer. This is what happens when politicans take on too much debt on behalf of the nation.

The economic implosion of Europe is accelerating. Even while the mainstream media continues to proclaim that the financial crisis in Europe has been “averted”, the economic statistics that are coming out of Europe just continue to get worse. Manufacturing activity in Europe has been contracting month after month, the unemployment rate in the eurozone has hit yet another brand new record high, and the official unemployment rates in both Greece and Spain are now much higher than the peak unemployment rate in the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The economic situation in Europe is far worse than it was a year ago, and it is going to continue to get worse as austerity continues to take a huge toll on the economies of the eurozone.

It would be hard to understate how bad things have gotten – particularly in southern Europe. The truth is that most of southern Europe is experiencing a full-blown economic depression right now. Sadly, most Americans are paying very little attention to what is going on across the Atlantic. But they should be watching, because this is what happens when nations accumulate too much debt. The United States has the biggest debt burden of all, and eventually what is happening over in Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and Greece is going to happen over here as well.

The following are 20 facts about the collapse of Europe that everyone should know…

#1 10 Months: Manufacturing activity in both France and Germany has contracted for 10 months in a row.

#2 11.8 Percent: The unemployment rate in the eurozone has now risen to 11.8 percent – a brand new all-time high.

#3 17 Months: In November, Italy experienced the sharpest decline in retail sales that it had experienced in 17 months.

#4 20 Months: Manufacturing activity in Spain has contracted for 20 months in a row.

#5 20 Percent: It is estimated that bad loans now make up approximately 20 percent of all domestic loans in the Greek banking system at this point.

#6 22 Percent: A whopping 22 percent of the entire population of Ireland lives in jobless households.

#7 26 Percent: The unemployment rate in Greece is now 26 percent. A year ago it was only 18.9 percent.

#8 26.6 Percent: The unemployment rate in Spain has risen to an astounding 26.6 percent.

#9 27.0 Percent: The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 in Cyprus. Back in 2008, this number was well below 10 percent.

#10 28 Percent: Sales of French-made vehicles in November were down 28 percent compared to a year earlier.

#11 36 Percent: Today, the poverty rate in Greece is 36 percent. Back in 2009 it was only about 20 percent.

#12 37.1 Percent: The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 in Italy – a brand new all-time high.

#13 44 Percent: An astounding 44 percent of the entire population of Bulgaria is facing “severe material deprivation”.

#14 56.5 Percent: The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 in Spain – a brand new all-time high.

#15 57.6 Percent: The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 in Greece – a brand new all-time high.

#16 60 Percent: Citigroup is projecting that there is a 60 percent probability that Greece will leave the eurozone within the next 12 to 18 months.

#17 70 Percent: It has been reported that some homes in Spain are being sold at a 70% discount from where they were at during the peak of the housing bubble back in 2006. At this point there areapproximately 2 million unsold homes in Spain.

#18 200 Percent: The debt to GDP ratio in Greece is rapidly approaching 200 percent.

#19 1997: According to the Committee of French Automobile Producers, 2012 was the worst year for the French automobile industry since 1997.

#20 2 Million: Back in 2005, the French auto industry produced about 3.5 million vehicles. In 2012, that number dropped to about 2 million vehicles.

Source: thecomingdepressionblog

Financial Collapse 2013

Many economists and analysts have been warning of a Global Financial collapse is just up ahead. As 2012 draws to a close a number of those well known names have risked their reputations and predicted what lies ahead in 2013. I have pieced together some of those predictions.

[1]Jim Willie writes of a Gold Standard as a solution to the crisis nations find themselves in as the system collapses. 

The arrival of the Gold Standard as the solution is being slowly manifested in the form of a gold-core trade settlement system, which will drive a global Gold Standard. The new system will dictate bank reserves practices, and render the USTBond as a rejected toxic paper relic. It should arrive early in 2013. In the process, the Western nations will become impoverished, as they desperately cling to the failed system. Anger will rise. Disorder will prevail. The USDollars inside the United States will be trapped, then devalued as the public watches in shock. The power will shift East inevitably, with the shipment of Gold. A new era will begin.

BusinessInsider wrote of [2]Geralde Celente’s (23 Dec 2012) view ahead.

Gerald Celente, the popular trends forecaster of Trends Research, cites the work of a former Treasury official and warns that the bonds are in a massive bubble that will burst in 2013 in what will be a financial collapse like nothing we’ve seen before.

He recently spoke about it in an interview with King World News:

“This piece is being penned by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, the former Assistant Treasury Secretary under Ronald Reagan.  And he is convinced that the bond bubble is about to burst.  This cannot continue to go on the way it is.  Everyone knows that the whole game is rigged, and so is this….

The whole game is rigged.  It’s ready to go down, and Dr. Paul Craig Roberts believes it’s ‘Bonds Away’ in 2013 as the bond bubble explodes and brings about a financial disaster even worse than the Great Depression.
…
Because the whole world is being propped up by these phony bonds and it’s going to collapse.  It has to happen.  Interest rates are going to start going up, and when they do the bond bubble explodes.  You cannot keep interest rates at zero for this amount of time and expect anything other than disaster to follow.”

[3]Jim Rogers expects based on the US having a recession every 4 years and the existing debt is so high that 2013 is going to be a disaster and for everybody to be very worried. For interview on MoneyNews click here.

be very worried about 2013 be very worried about 2014, because that’s when the next slowdown comes. In 2002 we had a recession in 2008, it was worse because the debt was so much higher, it is going to be even worse because the debt is so staggeringly high now. So if you are not worried about 2013, please get worried

Max Keiser on an interview (Aug 2012) on the Alex Jones show gave a timeframe of April 2013 at the latest.

April 2013 at the very latest when those tax receipts in the US will be spectacularly short.

. Goto 32 min

[4] Marc Faber sees 100% chance of Global Recession.

Dr. Marc Faber the Swiss fund manager and Gloom Boom & Doom editor is still expecting a global recession in 2013 when the economies of the world could take a hit from negative developments.

Speaking to CNBC‘s Closing Bell on Thursday, Faber still sees a 100% chance the world heads into recession, echoing a call he made in May, as he simply can’t see where growth will come from.

“If you look at the world, essentially Europe, the US, China and emerging economies that depend heavily on China, Europe is already in recession, the German economy is still growing slightly but likely to go into recession, the other economies are already in recession. The US has decelerated and I don’t see much growth in the next 6-12 months,” he said.

…….

When taken in concert, all the economies of the world could take a hit from these negative developments, he reckons. “I think we could have a global recession either in Q4 or early 2013.” When asked what were the odds, Faber replied, “100%.”

Is there anything the Fed or the Treasury can do, i.e. more quantitative easing?

“If you look at the injections of liquidity and the interventions by the Fed and also by the Treasury with fiscal measures over the last 15 years, [the measures] have actually already impoverished the U.S. economy,” he said.

John Williams (shadowstats.com) sees hyperinflation by 2013/2014

the economy is not going to recover. They are going to have to buy increasingly more and more as it does so the treasuries actually add to the increase of the money supply and that adds to the inflation pressures from there. where i see the risk and  where i see the trigger here from moving into a hyperinflationary circumstance in the next year or two. By 2014 is the outside timing I put on it. Very simply is a panic decline in the dollar.

See 12:40 min

[5]Peter Schiff has been bullish on gold and has been proved right down through the years. Schiff has also be very vocal in criticising the state of the US economy and has predicted a US Treasury collapse in 2013.

Market-Crushing Treasury Collapse To Hit Around 2013 , Peter Schiff expects the coming crisis to blow the 2008-9 financial crisis out of the water.“The more you delay it,(The FED’s ultra-loose monetary policy ) the bigger it will be,” “so we need to raise interest rates during the recession to confront the inefficiencies.” Peter Schiff told Forbes in a phone interview – via Forbes

[6]Michael Kreiger in an article on ZeroHedge (Oct 2012) believes 2013 is when the US finally experiences similar problems to the EU as the fiat dollar ponzi system comes to a boiling point.

As Nixon’s Treasury Secretary John Connelly said when confronted by a group of European Finance Ministers: “it’s our currency, but your problem.”  At the time he was correct, as we were at the very beginning of the fiat dollar standard.  41 years later the system is in its final days and our currency is about to become our problem as well.

There were always going to be massive consequences to keeping this ponzi alive.  What is extremely unfortunate is the small number of U.S. citizens that actually understand specifically that the root of every problem we face right now is the fiat dollar monetary system, because it gives all the power in the country to the Federal Reserve and the TBTF banks that tell Banana Ben Bernanke what to do.  Since 2008, many of the consequences of the fraud called American Crony Capitalism Inc. have been clear, but it has yet to hit the boiling point.  I believe that the boiling point will be hit sometime within the next six months, and 2013 will see the streets of America  beginning to look a lot like the streets of Spain and Greece.

Nobody sums it up better than this interview of Nicole Foss (Automatic Earth) on interest.co.nz of what lies ahead.

Potential Collapse scenario 1

Potential Collapse scenario 2 (Jim Rickards)

Sources:

[1] SilverDoctors,

[2] BusinessInsider,

[3] Jim Rogers,

[4] Lewrockwell,

[5] peterschiffchannel.blogspot.ie,

[6] ZeroHedge

Failure On COMEX Silver Likely

We finished December with a large takedown of both gold and silver by the central banks cartel but already the COMEX is showing signs of strain in coping with demand in silver. Banks with short positions (used to suppress the price) are unlikely to be covered in 2013 and so there is likely to be a failure on the COMEX.

Matterhorn Asset Management’s Lars Schall has released an excellent interview with GoldMoney’s Alasdair Macleod, discussing the latest take-down of the metals post QE4, the outlook for gold and silver, and cartel manipulation of the metals.
Macleod states that massive amounts of physical gold and silver have been flowing to Asia, and that the latest bank participation report indicates massive problems are brewing for the banksters in the COMEX silver market.  With cartel shorts near a record at just under 300 million net ounces, yet with the silver price substantially lower than the 2011 high, Macleod believes that we are quite likely to have a failure on COMEX and in the silver market in particular.

Regarding the latest bank participation report, Macleod states that commercial shorts are at record highs, yet NO SILVER IS AVAILABLE!:

“Bank shorts are at or near record levels. And what is interesting is that with the prices of gold and silver well below the all-time highs there are no profit-takers in the market to sell contracts to close their shorts. And in silver it is very, very alarming. This leads me to think that we are quite likely to have a failure on COMEX and in the silver market in particular.

If you have a failure in silver on COMEX then that is going to affect the gold futures market as well. The West’s central and commercial banks have suppressed the price of both gold and silver by supplying central-bank gold and increased short positions, making prices far too cheap. The result has been a massive transfer of gold and silver to Asia. This is the relevance of the point that you have been raising about Central Banks gold holdings, and it is also going to bring into question the solvency of the bullion banks who are short.

So, I think that while it may not be obvious to many people at the moment, when we look back at the fourth quarter we will see that the conditions were in place for a huge bear squeeze, for silver in particular. I would assume that the short position in gold is more controllable so long as Western Central Banks continue to make bullion available to the bullion banks that are short either on COMEX or with LBMA. But silver is different, nobody has it for sale. There is no silver around.”

Macleod goes on to state that gold will be remonetized, and the process is already well underway:

“I suspect that the Chinese Yuan will play a big role in Asia. What they’re doing with Iran is interesting. They’re settling net balances in gold and gold is being re-monetized in that sense. And I think that China has accumulated a lot more gold than they officially tell us. So they have the potential to use gold as money. I can see gold being re-monetized in the loosest sense for the largest internal market the world has ever seen. Believe me, it’s happening now.”

Macleod also states that the upcoming physical silver crisis at the COMEX will result in a suspension of silver trading at the COMEX, and a reset massively upwards in the price of silver:

“You’ve got the banks’ short position on COMEX which cannot be covered. According to the most recent bank participation reports, the banks are short of nearly 300 million ounces of silver. When you bear in mind this is an industrial metal, the vast bulk of silver consumption from mining and recycling supply goes into biocides, solar panels, electronics, et cetera. You have only 100 million ounces annually left over for investors. The short position for the banks on COMEX is three times that 100 million ounces.

There’s no way this can be covered without a price rise sufficient to kill off significant industrial demand, because there are no strategic reserves to draw on. The only country which might have strategic reserves is China but otherwise there are no reserves. And I think that the only way in which the banks’ shorts could be closed out is after a price hike which would lead to billions of dollars of losses for these banks. There will be a market crisis, and I think that they will have to suspend trading in silver and agree a settlement procedure for long and short contracts. And if that happens, it will be well over $50 an ounce. But remember, other exchanges will continue to price silver if Comex suspends, which will not help Comex resolve the problem if the price continues to rise elsewhere.”

On another question, Macleod was asked about Yuan as the next reserve currency being backed by gold :

“We must also understand that the dollar is for security reasons not something they want to use for their international trade settlements. Remember that every dollar transaction done in the world is reflected in a bank account in New York. So, the Chinese want to get away from the potential control and the intelligence information that it gives America. They want to use a different settlement medium.

Now, they agreed about 10 years ago with the Russians to set up the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and the last unsatisfied objective of the SCO is to have a common trade settlement system between the members of the SCO, which at the moment are Russia, China, and the various “stans” in middle-Asia. But interestingly, the next wave of members who will join are India, Iran, Pakistan, Mongolia and Afghanistan (as soon as NATO has left). So you’ve really got the bulk of Asia’s four billion people and they’re going to be settling cross-border trade not with the dollar but with something else. They need to be gold-rich to give confidence to their currencies. I suspect that the Chinese Yuan will play a big role in Asia. What they’re doing with Iran is interesting. They’re settling net balances in gold and gold is being re-monetized in that sense. And I think that China has accumulated a lot more gold than they officially tell us. So they have the potential to use gold as money. I can see gold being re-monetized in the loosest sense for the largest internal market the world has ever seen. Believe me, it’s happening now.”

Source: SilverDoctors

 

Paul Craig Roberts: America Going To Crash Big Time

Paul Craig Roberts (fmr Assistant Treasury Secretary in the Reagan Administration) was warned that the US is heading for a major crash. Some of the points covered from interview on USAWatchdog:

• Jobs were shipped overseas.
• Rising taxes and crushing social programs
• Consumer demand has collapsed.
• Fed printing trillions in order to buy bad debt as dollar is being devalued.
• No demand for US debt.
• Foreign nations will eventually have to dump the dollar.
• Gold price is manipulated and suppressed via paper gold. Any naked shorts can be backed by endless Fed mony printing.
• Gold manipulation will continue until the World abandons the dollar.
• Its cheaper for the BRICS not to use the dollar.
• Asian countries are discussing using a common currency for trading.
• When the dollar is dumped you are faced with hyperinflation.

Why Bernanke Is Wrong

Bernanke is turning the US into Japan economically speaking. Instead of taking the banks down the route of Iceland and recovering quickly he has chosen the path of Japan and its slow demise.

There’s a problem with kicking the can down the road – Ben Bernanke, (December 12 2012)

I’ve taken this quote out of context — Bernanke was actually talking about the fiscal cliff, and not monetary policy. But kicking the can down the road is exactly what Bernanke is doing in his domain.

Instead of letting the shadow banking bubble burst and liquidate in 2008, Bernanke has allowed it to slowly deflate, all the while pumping up the traditional banking sector with heavy, heavy liquidity:

It’s been one long, slow brutal grind:

The Fed continues to fight a losing battle, in which it has no choice but to offset any ongoing deleveraging – be it through maturities, prepays, or counterparty failure, or just simple lack of demand for shadow funding conduits – in the shadow banking system.

Trillions and trillions of liquidity later, Bernanke is barely keeping the system afloat:

The reduction in shadow liabilities remains a massive deflationary and depressionary force (and probably the main reason why a tripling of the monetary base has not resulted in very severe inflation). We could have taken the pain in one go back in 2008 — let the failed banks and failed sectors fail, let the junk be written down, and let all efforts go toward rebuilding a more robust system less sensitive to counterparty risk. But we chose to kick the can down the road, and try to reinflate the biggest bubble in history through helicopter drops to the financial sector, the outcome of which has been booming incomes for the rich, and a total lack of growth and opportunity for the poor (except, perhaps for the dubious “opportunity” to join the masses of the long-term unemployment and claim a slice of the increasingly unsustainable welfare pie).

We chose the path of Japan (which has spent the last twenty years depressed) not the path of Iceland (which is emerging from its depression). We chose to kick the can down the road. Like Bernanke said, there is a problem with that. No amount of buying financial sector assets up to an unemployment or inflation or NGDP target — which empirically seems to do more to enrich the financial sector and the big banks than to create jobs  — will fix that. The system is rotten, and the debt load is unsustainable.

Source: azizonomics

Impending Dollar Collapse

Much has been written and said of the impending USDollar collapse below is another cheery article 😉 but well worth the full read at CrisisHQ. The pressure is ever increasing, as 2013 brings with it $5-6 trillion in US debt to be repaid. The official debt figure of $16 trillion is nowhere near the mark. Its more like closer to $70 trillion.

U.S. government’s real financial burden is close to 70 trillion dollars. This is because the national debt of 16 trillion does not account for obligations like Social Security, Medicare, Public Employee Pensions and other liabilities which the government is already committed to.

These liabilities are ticking time bombs, primed to explode with each new wave of retiring baby boomers. On top of this, medical costs continue to rise across the board driving Medicare expenses through the roof.

Ultimately the unsustainable debts will lead to 2 options, default or permanent money printing which is the solution favoured by politicians as the people who run the financial system are part of the problem.

How long can we keep borrowing?

 

Some economists like to imagine that we can just grow our debt endlessly, because we have the ability to print dollars out of thin air. These “experts” allege that the treasury market is as strong as ever and we can just keep borrowing endlessly. These are the same “experts” that insisted that real estate prices will continue to rise perpetually, right up to the 2008 crash. According to them, we just need to raise the debt ceiling and keep growing that debt evermore.

But even though we can raise our debt ceiling time after time, there is still a natural debt limit we cannot cross. The notion that our government can keep growing our debt without end is preposterous.

First, it’s based on a foolish assumption that the rest of the world is willing to lend us money that they know we can’t pay back. Second, it ignores a mathematical consequence: exponential growth due to interest alone. Third, it presumes that the U.S. dollar will forever remain the world reserve currency.

….

The Federal Reserve has been keeping the interest artificially low to help the government keep borrowing. Of course this is no favor on the FED’s part because the end result is debt enslavement. Since whatever the government owes is inherited by the people, it’s the people who get screwed in the end. If the interest was allowed to return to market rates, it would help prevent the government from borrowing beyond its means.

However, at this point our lenders are realizing that our debt has long passed a sustainable level. If you have ever applied for a loan, you should be familiar with the following universal rule. When the borrower is in too much debt, the loan becomes high-risk and so the lender demands a higher interest to make the reward worthy of the risk. With every passing day, America plunges into a deeper debt pit and this makes lending to the U.S. (by buying treasury securities) a more and more risky investment.

To make things worse, the FED is devaluing the dollar at an increasing pace by issuing bailouts, stimulus packages, quantitative easing, etc… and our lenders are realizing this too. This means that the dollars that our creditors are loaning to us now are worth less when they get them back.

For these two reasons, the U.S. treasury securities (government IOU’s) are now high-risk, low-return investments. What was once considered the safest investment is now a Ponzi scheme at the point of collapse.

Who will bail out America when it runs out of lenders?

 

Our pool of willing lenders is starting to shrink as our creditors are waking up to the fact that treasuries are now a high-risk, low-return investment. To compensate for this the Fed is forced to buy up all the long term U.S. treasuries in an effort to artificially stimulate demand, to keep up the smokescreen. Of course this only inflates the U.S. bond bubble even more.

When the pool of willing lenders dries up, the scheme will reach its end and the final bubble will explode. Without lenders, the U.S. government has only two appalling choices, default on debt or hyper-inflate the dollar.

 

Option one

is to default on all debt. Essentially declaring bankruptcy to renegotiate all obligations. This would create a severe financial shock as the dollar collapses and loses its status as reserve currency. This would lead to a sharp increase in the cost of nearly everything, as more US dollars would be needed to pay for imports, resulting in a catastrophic economic impact for every American. The government will be forced to cut spending dramatically. A broad range of government payments would have to be stopped, including military salaries, Social Security and Medicare payments, unemployment benefits, tax refunds, etc. Companies would be crushed by a US consumer that would no longer have any buying power. In addition, credit would dry up virtually overnight, which would force untold numbers of companies to shut their doors. Unemployment in the country would spike to obscene levels. Interest rates would rise significantly forcing millions of families with adjustable mortgages to go into foreclosures.

 

Option two

is to have the Federal Reserve create trillions upon trillions of dollars out of thin air. This creates an illusion that the debt is being paid back, but in reality the dollars issued to pay the debt would become increasingly worthless, turning rapid inflation into hyperinflation. This would actually create a much worse scenario then the first option as hyperinflation will be even more economically destructive for the average American. Prices would soar to unimaginable levels, unemployment would skyrocket. The average American would be forced to work overtime just to put food on the table, that is if he or she is lucky enough to still have a job.

It’s worth mentioning that it is highly unlikely that the U.S. will choose default (option one). Even though hyper-inflation is by far more destructive for the American people in the long term, the government will most likely try to print its way out.

Either way the economy will collapse. Economically, the first option would feel like a heart attack and the second option like terminal cancer.

The ripple effects of either scenario would be unprecedented. It would not be the end of the world, but you can expect massive social unrest, protests, riots, looting, arson, etc., basic supply disruptions on all levels, utility failures and infrastructure decay, rampant violent crimes, especially in metropolitan areas, followed eventually by a long and very painful period of readjustment of living standards for most Americans.

What if we cut spending, raise taxes and balance the budget?

   

It’s amazing, that even now you hear the same old catch phrases like, “recovering economy”, “budget cuts” and “responsible spending”, thrown around by politicians on all the major news shows. But, anyone out there that insists that this crisis can be fixed under our current system is lying.

The spending cuts and tax increases that Congress is talking about are absolutely meaningless when compared to how rapidly our debt is exploding.

Calling those cuts and taxes “pocket change” would be an insult to pocket change.

No bailout, stimulus package or manipulation by the Federal Reserve is going to avoid the massive financial pain that’s coming our way.

So what can our government do to fix the current financial crisis and avoid the dollar crash? What would it take?

It would take the kind of measures that are our government considers too extreme to even discuss and so there’s no chance of them being approved. For starters we would need to abolish the Federal Reserve, go back to the gold standard, shut down overseas military bases, completely reform the tax code, restructure entitlement programs, etc.

Unfortunately, proposing such changes is the fastest way to lose your political funding, become the laughing stock of Washington and be ignored or ridiculed by the mainstream media. Just ask Ron Paul.

Our Congress knows full well that fighting against the system is political suicide. And so no meaningful change that would help lessen the impact of the coming crash will be approved.

As far as the oval office and Congress is concerned, postponing the crash by issuing bailouts and stimulus packages is a more politically favorable approach, even though this ensures an even bigger catastrophe in the end.

The bottom line is this: we’re on a path to an inevitable dollar crash. The ones that run our monetary system and hold the keys to our economy are actually part of the problem instead of the solution. The ones in power that can make the desperately needed changes dare not.

Rather then risk their careers, they will continue to shamelessly distribute our hard earned money among their friends on Wall Street. The handful of our honest politicians that are actually brave enough to stand up for the people are shut out by the system.

At this point, we’re on a run away train without brakes, so you better brace yourself. The good news is there is still time for you to prepare for what’s up ahead. Most people will be completely unprepared when the whole thing comes crashing down.

Don’t be part of that group.

Source: CrisisHQ

Marc Faber: Reset of Global Financial System Will Happen

Marc Faber on CNBC

• We have too much debt in the West that needs to be paid down or no growth.
• We lived beyond our means since the 80s now its payback period.
• There will be an eventual “reset” of the Global Financial System.
• The Governments will avoid instigating he “reset” and will happen because of either currency collapsing or markets imploding.
• When it does we will be lucky to have 50% of the asset values that we have today.

Argentina Close To Default

With protests growing in Argentina against the Government the CDS shows a 60% chance of default in weeks according to ZeroHedge.

Dear Buenos Aires: we have three words of advice – “hide yo’ catamarans” (before Paul Singer comes and collects them all once you default again in what the market now deems is inevitable to occur in the next few weeks). 5Y CDS on Argentina just reverse-Baumgartnered to over 3000bps (49/53% upfront) and short-dated CDS imply a 60% probability of default (assuming a 25% recovery).

The Argentinian government under Cristina Kirchner is deeply unpopular and in recent weeks there has been a growing unrest.

Angry over inflation, crime and corruption, hundreds of thousands of Argentines of all ages flooded the capital’s streets for nearly four hours to protest against President Cristina Fernandez in Argentina’s biggest anti-government demonstration in years.

Protests were reported right across Argentina and beyond its borders.

A spokesman for Buenos Aires’ Justice and Security Ministry estimated the demonstrators in the capital at 700,000 people. Other demonstrations were held on plazas across Argentina, including in major cities such as Cordoba, Mendoza and La Plata, while protesters massed outside Argentine embassies and consulates from Chile to Australia.

In Rome, about 50 protesters, all Argentine expats, held a noisy protest outside the consulate on Via Veneto, one of the city’s landmark streets. Among the slogans being shouted was “Cristina, go away.”

About 200 demonstrators braved rain in Madrid to bang pots outside the Argentine consulate.

Approval ratings plummeting in less than a year.

Fernandez easily won re-election just a year ago with 54 percent of the vote but saw her approval rating fall to 31 percent in a nationwide survey in September by the firm Management & Fit. The poll of 2,259 people, which had an error margin of about two percentage points, also said 65 percent of respondents disapproved of her opponents’ performance.

But it’s when people are hit in the pocket that people react and inflation is biting hard.

Inflation also upsets many. The government’s much-criticized index puts inflation at about 10 percent annually, but private economists say prices are rising about three times faster than that. Real estate transactions have slowed to a standstill because of the difficulty in estimating future values, and unions that won 25 percent pay hikes only a few months ago are threatening to strike again unless the government comes up with more.

Source: ZeroHedge, LasVegasSun

 

Jim Rogers: The End Of Dollar Is Coming Closer

• Next recession will be worse because of higher debt.
• No matter what Washington does they will make it worse because of spending.
• Tax increases are not good for the economy. They need to cut spending.
• Sooner or later its going to be a catastrophe and its coming sooner.
• We don’t have an alternative World reserve currency yet.
• Its a certainty that the dollar will collapse in either the next recession 2013/14 or the one after that.
• Nobody is going to jail because the people who caused this are well-connected in Washington.
• The next collapse will see people arrested for it.
• We are already seeing inflation and we will see inflation holocaust.
• The Fed buys over 70% of US Bonds and Jim Rogers is short bonds.
• Bullish on agriculture. We are running out of farmers.
• More mistakes to come out of JPMorgan commodities department.
• Myanmar to have a great future as well as North Korea and Angola.

John Williams: Hyperinflation by 2014

John Williams of Shadowstats.com gave an interview on usawatchdog regarding his opinion that there will be hyperinflation by 2014.

• Public awareness to grow in the months.
• Its a certainty that we will experience hyperinflation.
• You will see a sell off in dollar followed by spike in oil prices.
• The Fed’s primary concern is to keep the banking system afloat.
• $12 trillion in liquid dollar assets held outside the U.S.  Williams says it is only a matter of time before all the Fed money printing will “trigger a sell-off”.
• Buy gold and silver to protect your purchasing power.

21 Signs Of Global Crisis To Worsen

The following are 21 signs that the global economic crisis is about to go to a whole new level….

#1 Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer says that the global economy is “awfully close” to recession.

#2 It was announced last week that the unemployment rate in Greece has reached an all-time high of 25.1 percent.  Unemployment among those 24 years old or younger is now more than 54 percent.  Back in April 2010, the unemployment rate in Greece was only sitting at 11.8 percent.

#3 The IMF is warning that Greek debt may have to be “restructured” yet again.

#4 Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg says that it is “probable” that Greece will leave the euro, and that it might happen within the next six months.

#5 An angry crowd of approximately 40,000 angry Greeks recently descended on Athens to protest a visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel…

From high-school students to pensioners, tens of thousands of Greek demonstrators swarmed into Athens yesterday to show the visiting German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, their indignation at their country’s continued austerity measures.

Flouting the government’s ban on protests, an estimated 40,000 people – many carrying posters depicting Ms Merkel as a Nazi – descended on Syntagma Square near the parliament building. Masked youths pelted riot police with rocks as the officers responded with tear gas.

The authorities had deployed 7,000 police, water cannon and a helicopter. Snipers were placed on rooftops to ensure the German leader’s safety.

#6 The debt crisis is Argentina is becoming increasingly troublesome.

#7 The government debt to GDP ratio in Italy is expected to hit 126 percent this year.  In Greece, it is expected to hit 198 percent.  In Japan, it is expected to hit a whopping 237 percent.

#8 Standard & Poor’s has slashed the credit rating on Spanish government debt to BBB-, which is just one level above junk status.

#9 Back in the year 2000, the ratio of total debt to GDP in Spain was 192 percent.  By 2011, it had reached 363 percent.

#10 Record amounts of money are being pulled out of Spanish banks, and many large Spanish banks are rapidly heading toward insolvency.

#11 Manufacturing activity in Spain has contracted for 17 months in a row.

#12 It is being projected that home prices in Spain will fall by another 15 percent by the end of 2013.

#13 The unemployment rate in France is now above 10 percent, and it has risen for 16 months in a row.

#14 There are signs that Switzerland may be preparing for “major civil unrest” throughout Europe.

#15 The former top economist at the European Central Bank says that the ECB has fallen into a state of “panic” as it desperately tries to solve the European debt crisis.

#16 According to a recent IMF report, European banks may need to sell off 4.5 trillion dollars in assets over the next 14 months in order to meet strict new capital requirements.

#17 In August, U.S. exports dropped to the lowest level that we have seen since last February.

#18 Economics Professor Barry Eichengreen is very concerned about what is coming next for stocks in the United States…

“I’m worried that stock markets in the United States in particular have gotten ahead of economic growth”

#19 During the week ending October 3rd, investors pulled more than 10 billion dollars out of U.S. mutual funds.  Overall, a total of more than 100 billion dollars has been pulled out of U.S. mutual funds so far this year.

#20 As I wrote about the other day, the IMF is warning that there is an “alarmingly high” risk of a deeper global economic slowdown.

#21 When shipping companies start laying off workers, that is one of the best signs that economic activity is slowing down.  That is why it was so troubling when it was announced that FedEx is planning to get rid of “several thousand” workers over the coming months.  According to AFP, “its business is being hit by the global economic slowdown”.

Source: theeconomiccollapseblog.com