21 Signs That The Global Economic Crisis Is About To Go To A Whole New Level

Michael Snyder, Contributor

The global debt crisis has reached a dangerous new phase. Unfortunately, most Americans are not taking notice of it yet because most of the action is taking place overseas, and because U.S. financial markets are riding high.  But just because the global economic crisis is unfolding at the pace of a "slow-motion train wreck" right now does not mean that it isn't incredibly dangerous.

As I have written about previously, the economic collapse is not going to be a single event.  Yes, there will be days when the Dow drops by more than 500 points. Yes, there will be days when the reporters on CNBC appear to be hyperventilating. But mostly there will be days of quiet despair as the global economic system slides even further toward oblivion. And right now things are clearly getting worse.

Things in Greece are much worse than they were six months ago.  Things in Spain are much worse than they were six months ago.  The same thing could be said for Italy, France, Japan, Argentina and a whole bunch of other nations.  The entire global economy is slowing down, and we are entering a time period that is going to be incredibly painful for everyone.  At the moment, the U.S. is still experiencing a "sugar high" from unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus, but when that "sugar high" wears off the hangover will be excruciating.

The economic consequences of cheap money

Ludwig Von Mises

[From a memorandum, dated April 24, 1946, prepared in English by Professor Mises for a committee of businessmen for whom he served as a consultant, this article appears in The Causes of the Economic Crisis, and Other Essays Before and After the Great Depression (2006) as chapter 5, "The Trade Cycle and Credit Expansion: The Economic Consequences of Cheap Money."]

The author of this paper is fully aware of its insufficiency. Yet, there is no means of dealing with the problem of the trade cycle in a more satisfactory way if one does not write a treatise embracing all aspects of the capitalist market economy. The author fully agrees with the dictum of Böhm-Bawerk: “A theory of the trade cycle, if it is not to be mere botching, can only be written as the last chapter or the last chapter but one of a treatise dealing with all economic problems.”

It is only with these reservations that the present writer presents this rough sketch to the members of the Committee.

I. The Unpopularity of Interest

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Governments in Retreat

Dr. Mark Sircus
IMVA

Governments, like most egos, believe they are important. But like egos, they separate from the people they serve. Governments, in their heightened sense of separation and alliance with big business become vicious, even against their own people, and it really does not matter the form of government, with democracy being one of the worst offenders. Even the States in America are beginning to fight back against Federal control in their struggle to maintain state rights.

Things are about to change drastically in the U.S. and around the world. Events are getting seriously out of hand and will turn ugly faster than any of us can imagine or believe so from here on hold on for dear life! We’re Rapidly Approaching the Crisis to Which 2008 Was a Warm Up. The entire system, funded by the globalist bankers, is entering into a terminal phase with imminent financial and economic collapse looming up as the probable conclusion. The first waves have struck in terms of events in North Africa but when the full crisis hits who will be swept away and what will be left standing is anyone’s guess. We are literally living on borrowed time as something major is brewing in markets around the world and the stakes have never been higher.


“Incomes, job security, health- and other benefits, pensions, average pay, and of course jobs themselves, everything is rapidly deteriorating. While at the same time bankers and politicians are siphoning off what they can get away with from the public funds that by right belong to the same people who lose their jobs, health care access, pensions and homes. And desperately need those funds. The major financial executives may be raking in record stacks of stolen dough, but average American and European citizens are intensely watching their wealth evaporate into thin air as they become increasingly desperate with every passing day,” writes the Automatic Earth.

Marc Farber, Mr. Doom and Gloom himself, who is well respected in the financial world, spells it out. “I think we are all doomed.  I think what will happen is that we are in the midst of a kind of a crack-up boom that is not sustainable, that eventually the economy will deteriorate, that there will be more money-printing, and then you have inflation, and a poor economy, an extreme form of stagflation, and, eventually, in that situation, countries go to war, and, as a whole, derivatives, the market, and everything will collapse, and like a computer when it crashes, you will have to reboot it.”

It is a matter of record! The spate of seething, youth-inspired Middle East uprisings that are toppling governments, reshaping the geopolitical landscape and roiling world markets blindsided the world’s intelligence community. Not the CIA, Joint Chiefs of Staff or National Security Council saw it coming. Mossad and MI5 missed it! None of the mainstream media’s star-studded stable of scholars, experts and think-tank policy wonks were thinking ahead. 

Gerald Celente
Trends Research

The only choice we’ve been offered in terms of different forms of government has been between bad and worse. The democracy we see in America offers no more than a huge betrayal of the people’s trust. Yet people around the world thirst for democracy because, in principle, democracy is supposed to be dedicated to the people. The reality is something quite different.

What’s happening in Greece will spread worldwide as economies decline. There are no organizations behind this response, it’s a public response. This is a 21st century rendition of “Workers of the World unite.” Initially the strikes, riots and protests by unions, student groups, the unemployed, pensioners, and the outraged were sloughed off as predictable (but short-lived and ineffectual) responses that would either peter out on their own or be stomped down by the police. The unofficial reality was that, as Gerald Celente has repeatedly warned, “When people lose everything and have nothing left to lose, they lose it.”

Gerald Celente
Trends Research

It is my assertion that the United States government actually looks down in contempt at its own citizens, kicking dirt in their faces. America, in its lust to control the world in British fashion, has turned against everything good. The American people are completely helpless and have no power to stop all the evils being perpetuated by their government, including the endless wars and uncontrolled killing.

Virtually overnight, the revolutions have been glorified as courageous fights for freedom and liberty by democracy-hungry-masses. But it is not hunger for democracy that drives them. Democracy, autocracy, theocracy, monarchy—right, center, left—it is mostly a gut issue—an empty gut issue. When the money stops flowing down to the man in the street, the blood starts flowing in the streets. It’s a simple equation. A few at the top have too much, and too many others have too little.

Gerald Celente
Trends Research

Today governments can no longer afford to ignore their citizens’ concerns surrounding economic disparity, food supply, rising prices and a host of other things including the health and medical care of the people. Governments can no longer be subservient to industrial corporate interests that have never ever been concerned about what is good for the people. But governments seem to not really care what their citizens can afford or what is right and good. Most governments in the end are pathetic, having abandoned their real responsibilities to the people. In America the constitution has become nothing more than a joke—certainly far from “by the people and for the people.”

The jolt felt around the world is in the process of shattering the recovery illusion. Whether deliberately (as calculated policy) or as fallout from fear-based denial, the pieces are not being put together. The current unrest is not confined to the Middle East and North Africa, and as we had forecast, it will spread to Europe and other parts of the world. The more volatile and widespread the insurrections, the greater the probability that some combination of events (e.g., oil shock, terror attack, cyber wars and regional wars) will crash already fragile economies, and roil sound ones. “Be Prepared” conditions are spinning out of control.

Gerald Celente
Trends Research

There is little doubt we are being forced back to a more local existence where we and the people around us will have to look after ourselves and survive the anarchy coming from the collapse of paper and digital wealth everywhere in the world at once. This will of course be very difficult in cities where there is total dependency on the system.

In Libya we already have an example where a city, beyond federal control, sees its residents and rebels already hammering out a new way of life and governance. The fruits of their efforts are taking shape. A judge, still wearing his robes, wandered through traffic ordering drivers to put on their seat belts. At another intersection, three young men helped an elderly police officer direct a traffic jam. Dozens of banks opened for business, and by late afternoon, stores, shuttered for days, had started to reopen. Belgium, without a federal government for a record amount of time, is also doing quite well without their government and the people want to keep it that way by dividing themselves down to more local levels of language and control.

People with Their Heads in the Sand

Things are moving so fast in world events that one can hardly make sense or keep track of everything that is going on. But a sense that things are going terribly wrong is growing even though there are still people living in oblivion, thinking everything is hunky dory. Bob Herbert of the New York Times is astounded that people are talking in normal tones about the equivalent of a hurricane ripping through their lives, leaving massive destruction in its wake. No matter how bad the news gets, few seem, outwardly at least, to be particularly concerned.

Gonzalo Lira has a partial explanation. “It’s as if it were happening to someone else—it’s as if it were happening to the Canadians, not to America. The American people are taking the whole budget deficit thing so la-di-da.”Heasks, “Why is no one freaking out over the incredible monetization of the federal government debt that is being carried out by Ben Bernanke and the Gnomes at the Federal Reserve? I have a theory—unscientific, but I think it’s true: The American people have thrown in the towel. They collectively realize that the shit is going to hit the fan big time. So in this little window of time before The Big Splatter, everyone’s pretending that nothing’s wrong, everything’s fine—we’re doing hunky dory, couldn’t be better. Any bad news—like the monster deficit—is ignored, blatantly. The American people collectively blew their country. So now everyone’s pretending that everything’s fine,” while waiting for the end to come. “Everybody with any sense knows that The Big Splatter is on its way—everyone knows there’s nothing that can stop it. So when bits of bad news crop up—like the revised deficit numbers—Americans are placid as Hindu cows. And why not? These deficit numbers are nothing!Americans all know that it’s going to get much, much worse. They all know that there’s no sense worrying about the little milestones on the road to hell. They all know that they’re waiting for The Big Splatter.”

“If one is going to fall out of a window, how much it hurts when one hits the ground (and splatters) will depend on how many stories high the window was. Some of those who live a relatively hand-to-mouth existence may find themselves falling out of a ground-floor window. They will dust themselves off and move on. This will be much less painful than falling from the hundredth floor, as many of the better-off will end up doing. People who may have nothing, but also owe nothing, are not so badly off in comparison with those who have a lot, but owe far more than they have. The latter is a very common situation, and will become increasingly common as assets prices fall in a deflationary environment, and debt servicing becomes ever more onerous. Very many seemingly wealthy people are over-stretched ‘like butter spread over too much bread,’ as Bilbo put it in The Lord of the Rings. Essentially, it is far better to have nothing than less than nothing in net monetary terms,” writes Stoneleigh for The Automatic Earth.

Fiscal insanity is now the embedded reality of the United States Federal government and this will lead very soon to big trouble for everyone in the states. It is already a big problem for the rest of the world because of the exported inflation.

“Tense and terrible times inevitably summon an odd coupling of two very different and difficult human conditions, honesty and brutality. Certain painful truths are revealed and often a palpable fury erupts. Our economy, our culture, our entire world is built upon debt. No one ever asked us if that’s how we wanted it; it is simply how the system was designed when we came into it. After careful examination, it becomes evident that debt does not fuel economy; it suffocates it. It does not nurture growth; it stunts and poisons it,” writes the Neithercorp Press.

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4 Scenarios for the Coming Collapse of the American Empire

The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines.

Alfred W. McCoy
Alternet

A soft landing for America 40 years from now?  Don’t bet on it.  The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines.  If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting.

Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003.


Future historians are likely to identify the Bush administration’s rash invasion of Iraq in that year as the start of America's downfall. However, instead of the bloodshed that marked the end of so many past empires, with cities burning and civilians slaughtered, this twenty-first century imperial collapse could come relatively quietly through the invisible tendrils of economic collapse or cyberwarfare.

But have no doubt: when Washington's global dominion finally ends, there will be painful daily reminders of what such a loss of power means for Americans in every walk of life. As a half-dozen European nations have discovered, imperial decline tends to have a remarkably demoralizing impact on a society, regularly bringing at least a generation of economic privation. As the economy cools, political temperatures rise, often sparking serious domestic unrest.

Available economic, educational, and military data indicate that, when it comes to U.S. global power, negative trends will aggregate rapidly by 2020 and are likely to reach a critical mass no later than 2030. The American Century, proclaimed so triumphantly at the start of World War II, will be tattered and fading by 2025, its eighth decade, and could be history by 2030.

Significantly, in 2008, the U.S. National Intelligence Council admitted for the first time that America's global power was indeed on a declining trajectory. In one of its periodic futuristic reports,Global Trends 2025, the Council cited “the transfer of global wealth and economic power now under way, roughly from West to East" and "without precedent in modern history,” as the primary factor in the decline of the “United States' relative strength -- even in the military realm.” Like many in Washington, however, the Council’s analysts anticipated a very long, very soft landing for American global preeminence, and harbored the hope that somehow the U.S. would long “retain unique military capabilities… to project military power globally” for decades to come.

No such luck.  Under current projections, the United States will find itself in second place behind China (already the world's second largest economy) in economic output around 2026, and behind India by 2050. Similarly, Chinese innovation is on a trajectory toward world leadership in applied science and military technology sometime between 2020 and 2030, just as America's current supply of brilliant scientists and engineers retires, without adequate replacement by an ill-educated younger generation.

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US Fed lent $3.3tn to multinationals, billionaires and foreign banks

US central bank releases details of thousands of secret loans to global firms as well as foreign banks and American billionaires

Dominic Rushe
Guardian

The global credit crunch of 2008 ran deeper and wider than previously disclosed, forcing the US government to fund firms including General Electric and Toyota, along with banks and billionaire investors, according to documents released by the Federal Reserve.

Under pressure from politicians, the US central bank has released details of 21,000 transactions it made as the global economy faced meltdown.

As well as its well-publicised support of the banking system, the Fed's aid reached far beyond Wall Street, offering finance to the motorbike manufacturer Harley-Davidson, the industrial equipment maker Caterpillar, the telecoms company Verizon and even the computer billionaire Michael Dell as it struggled to keep the economy going. The lending reached $3.3tn (£2.1tn) at its peak.

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US Ready to Back Bigger EU Stability Fund: Official

Reuters

The United States would be ready to support the extension of the European Financial Stability Facility via an extra commitment of money from the International Monetary Fund, a U.S. official told Reuters on Wednesday.

"There are a lot of people talking about that. I think the European Commission has talked about that," said the U.S. official, commenting on enlarging the 750 billion euro ($980 billion) EU/IMF European stability fund. "It is up to the Europeans. We will certainly support using the IMF in these circumstances."

"There are obviously some severe market problems," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "In May, it was Greece. This is Ireland and Portugal. If there is contagion that's a huge problem for the global economy." 

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Bank Holiday Rumors Swirl Amidst Currency Crisis

Fed’s “mad experiment” in dollar debasement stokes fresh jitters

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet

With the world on the verge of a currency war as the Federal Reserve follows through on its dollar-killing quantitative easing program, rumors are once again swirling of a “bank holiday,” during which US citizens will be prevented from withdrawing money or at least limited in the amount of the withdrawal they can make.

The bank holiday is rumored to be set for next week, with Tuesday November 11 pinpointed as the likeliest date.

According to radio host Steve Quayle, a pastor was told by one of the managers of a prominent east coast bank that banks would close for an undetermined amount of time, and that when they reopened, “all withdrawals by checks would be limited to $500 per week – no matter what the balance in the account is.”

Limiting the amount of money customers can withdraw or blocking the facility altogether reminds us of a Citigroup advisory that was sent to customers at the start of the yearwhich stated that the bank reserved “the right to require (7) days advance notice before permitting a withdrawal from all checking accounts.” The story stoked fears that financial institutuions were preparing for bank runs.

On his website, Quayle asks, “When in U.S. History has a sitting President taken off on an overseas trip for an extended period of time, with 65 airplanes, 34 warships reportedly 3,000 people including his friends and cohorts, at the pinnacle of an economic and political upheaval?”

Fears of a bank holiday first arose in June of last year, when it was rumored that banks would close their doors in early September. Concern was fueled by reports that US embassies in foreign countries were purchasing large quantities of local currency.

With Brazil and other countries now threatening to take drastic currency measures to protect themselves against a dollar crisis, a similar financial environment is stoking identical fears.

Bank holidays are not without precedent in the United States. On March 5 1933, newly elected Franklin Roosevelt declared a “bank holiday” that lasted four days, during which he rammed through the Emergency Banking Act which granted FDR near dictatorial control over the dealings of banks. The Act also forced every citizen and business in the country to relinquish their gold in exchange for paper currency.

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