New DVDs By Michael Snyder
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 The unemployment rate in the eurozone is now 10.7 percent. That is the highest the unemployment rate has been since the introduction of the euro. The unemployment rate in the eurozone never got any higher than 10.2 percent during the last recession. This is very troubling news. It was just recently announced that the eurozone has entered another recession, and already the unemployment rate is hitting new record highs. So how bad are things going to get in the months to come? The truth is that the problems for Europe are just starting. The European sovereign debt crisis continues to get worse, and another major global financial crisis is going to be here way too soon. The EU as a whole has a larger population, a larger banking system and more Fortune 500 companies than the United States does. When the financial system of Europe crashes, the entire world is going to feel it.
Some of the unemployment numbers coming out of Europe are absolutely staggering.
Unemployment in Spain is 19.9 percent.
Unemployment in Greece is 23.3 percent.
And when you look at youth unemployment the numbers are far worse.
The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 is 48.1 percent in Greece and 49.9 percent in Spain.
If you look carefully at the photos of the austerity riots happening in Spain and in Greece you will notice that the vast majority of the protesters are young people.
Instead of getting better, the unemployment numbers in Europe just keep getting worse. Many analysts were shocked by these new numbers. The following is from a CNN article….
“This is appalling,” said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, highlighting that the unemployment rate following the collapse of Lehman Brothers peaked at 10.2%.
Appalling indeed.
The frightening thing is that we haven’t even had a major financial crisis in Europe yet. So far, the powers that be have been able to keep Greece from defaulting and have been able to keep major banks all over Europe from collapsing.
But there are quite a few signs that the “moment of reckoning” for Europe is rapidly approaching….
-The European Central Bank announced on Tuesday that it would no longer take Greek bonds as collateral from European banks. That is a really bad sign.
-Major European banks are revealing unexpectedly huge losses on Greek debt. The following is from a Reuters article….
The scars of Greece’s debt crisis were laid bare in heavy losses from a string of European banks on Thursday, and bosses warned the region’s precarious finances would continue to threaten economic growth and earnings.
From France to Germany, Britain to Belgium, four of the region’s biggest banks lined up to reveal they lost more than 8 billion euros (6.8 million pounds) last year from their Greek bonds holdings.
“We are in the worst economic crisis since 1929,” Credit Agricole chief executive Jean-Paul Chifflet said.
-The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has ruled that the Greek debt deal will not trigger payouts on credit default swaps. This is going to make it less likely that private bondholders will voluntarily agree to the debt deal.
This ruling is also seriously shaking confidence in credit default swaps. After all, they are supposed to be “insurance” in case something happens. But if they aren’t going to pay out when you need them, what good are they?
-Voters in Germany are sick and tired of pouring money into a black hole. One recent opinion poll in Germany showed that Germans are overwhelmingly against more bailouts for Greece.
Some German politicians are becoming very open about their feelings for Greece. For example, Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said the following in a recent interview with Der Spiegel….
“Greece’s chances to regenerate itself and become competitive are surely greater outside the monetary union than if it remains in the euro area.” He added that he did not support a forced exit. “I’m not talking about throwing Greece out, but rather about creating incentives for an exit that they can’t pass up.”
-In Greece, news publications are openly portraying German Chancellor Angela Merkel as Hitler. Far left political parties that oppose the bailouts are surging in the polls and anger and frustration are reaching unprecedented levels.
The following is from a recent article in The Guardian….
There is a growing animosity towards Germany on the streets of Athens. Angela Merkel bears most of the hostility with one of Greece’s newspapers last week mocking the chancellor up as a Nazi on its front page.
Niki Fidaki, 40, says Greeks are angry at Germany and the troika’s demands for higher taxes and public services cuts. “People can’t afford to pay the tax. My pay has gone down, but my taxes have gone up. But, I’m a lucky one – half of my friends don’t have jobs. Greeks hate that they are asking us to pay all the time when we don’t have the money. Families have no work, they have kids to look after but no money to pay for anything.”
As I have written about before, Greece is already going through a devastating economic depression. The people of Greece are not in the mood to be pushed much further.
The eurozone is a powder keg that could explode at any time.
So why is the U.S. economy doing so much better than the European economy right now?
Well, a big reason is because we haven’t seen any austerity in the United States yet.
Barack Obama is funding our false prosperity by borrowing 150 million dollars an hour from our children and our grandchildren.
Of course all of this reckless borrowing is going to make the eventual collapse of our financial system far worse, but right now Americans don’t seem to care. The only thing the mainstream media seems to care about is that some of our economic numbers are getting slightly better.
The sad thing is that our government is spending a lot of this money on some of the most stupid things that you could possibly imagine.
Did you know that the Obama administration just spent $750,000 on a brand new soccer field for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay?
I wish I had a $750,000 soccer field to play on.
I would love that.
Look, when the federal government quits stealing more than a trillion dollars a year from future generations things are going to look a whole lot different in this country.
So pay attention to what is going on in Europe.
That is where we are headed eventually.
 The global financial system is not a game of checkers. It is a game of chess. All over the world today, news headlines are proclaiming that this new Greek debt deal has completely eliminated the possibility of a chaotic Greek debt default. Unfortunately, that is simply not the case. Rather, the truth is that this new deal actually “sets the table” for a Greek debt default. When I was studying and working in the legal arena, I learned that sometimes you make an agreement so that you can get the other side to break it. That may sound very strange to the average person on the street, but this is how the game is played at the highest levels. It is all about strategy. And in this case, the new debt deal imposes such strict conditions on Greece that it is almost inevitable that Greece will fail to meet some of them. When Greece does fail, Germany and the other northern European nations may try to claim that they “did everything that they could” but that Greece just did not “live up to its obligations”. So does this mean that we will definitely see a chaotic Greek debt default? No. What this does mean is that the chess pieces are being moved into position for one.
The following are 8 reasons why the Greek debt deal may not stop a chaotic Greek debt default….
#1 Greece Is Being Set Up To Fail
The terms of this new debt deal impose some incredibly harsh austerity measures on Greece and from now on the Greek government will be subject to “permanent monitoring” by EU officials.
In other words, they will be under a microscope.
Any violation of the terms of the debt deal could be used as a pretext to bring down the hammer and cut off bailout funds. Potentially, this could even happen just a few weeks from now.
It has become obvious that there are many politicians in Europe that would very much like to kick Greece out of the euro. In a recent column, the International Business Editor of The Telegraph summed up the situation this way….
It is clear that Berlin, Helsinki, and the Hague have taken the decision to eject Greece from the euro whatever the country now does. Even if Greece complies to the letter with the impossible terms of the EU-IMF Troika, it will not make any difference. A fresh pretext will be found.
#2 The Next Greek Election Could Bring An End To The Bailout Deal Overnight
The next national Greek elections are scheduled for April. Political parties opposed to the bailout have been surging in recent polls. It is becoming increasingly likely that the next Greek government will abandon this new deal entirely.
The following is what hedge fund manager Dennis Gartman told CNBC about what is likely to happen after the next elections….
“A new government is going to come to power following elections that shall take place sometime this spring, and if anyone anywhere believes that the next Greek government shall do anything other than abrogate all the agreements made with the ‘troika,’ then we have a bridge we’d like to sell them at a very high price”
With each passing day anger and frustration inside Greece continue to rise, and those that are currently holding power in Greece are becoming very unpopular.
One current member of Greek Parliament recently talked about what he thinks will happen in the aftermath of the next election….
“If we achieve a Left-dominated government, we will politely tell the Troika to leave the country, and we may need to discuss an orderly return to the Drachma”
#3 This Bailout Deal Is Going To Make Economic Conditions In Greece Even Worse
In a previous article, I listed some of the new austerity measures that are being imposed on Greece by this new agreement….
The EU and the IMF are demanding that Greece fire 15,000 more government workers immediately and a total of 150,000 government workers by 2015.
The EU and the IMF are demanding that wages for government workers be cut by another 20 percent.
The EU and the IMF are demanding that the minimum wage be slashed by more than 20 percent.
The EU and the IMF are also demanding significant reductions in unemployment benefits and pension benefits.
The austerity measures that have already been implemented over the past few years have already pushed Greece into an economic depression.
These new austerity measures will deepen that depression.
At the moment, the Greek national debt is sitting at about 160 percent of GDP.
We are being told that these new austerity measures will reduce that ratio to 120 percent by 2020, but already there are many in the financial world that are calling such a goal “comical“.
Even with this new deal, the Greek national debt is still completely and total unsustainable. A “confidential report” produced by analysts from the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund says the following about what this new debt deal is likely to accomplish….
There are notable risks. Given the high prospective level and share of senior debt, the prospects for Greece to be able to return to the market in the years following the end of the new program are uncertain and require more analysis. Prolonged financial support on appropriate terms by the official sector may be necessary. Moreover, there is a fundamental tension between the program objectives of reducing debt and improving competitiveness, in that the internal devaluation needed to restore Greece competitiveness will inevitably lead to a higher debt to GDP ratio in the near term. In this context, a scenario of particular concern involves internal devaluation through deeper recession (due to continued delays with structural reforms and with fiscal policy and privatization implementation). This would result in a much higher debt trajectory, leaving debt as high as 160 percent of GDP in 2020. Given the risks, the Greek program may thus remain accident-prone, with questions about sustainability hanging over it.
The GDP of Greece fell by 6.8 percent during 2011.
2012 was already expected to be even worse, and all of these new austerity measures certainly are not going to help things.
And every time the Greek economy contracts that makes a chaotic debt default even more likely.
#4 The Greek Parliament Must Still Vote On This Bailout Deal
It is anticipated that the Greek Parliament will vote on this new agreement on Wednesday.
It is expected to pass.
But when it comes to Greece these days, there are no guarantees.
#5 The Greek Constitution Must Still Be Modified
Under the terms of this new agreement, Greece is being required to change its constitution.
The following is how an article in The Economist describes this requirement….
Over the next two months Greece has promised to adopt legislation “ensuring that priority is granted to debt-servicing payments”, with a view to enshrining this in the constitution “as soon as possible”. These arrangements may not amount to the budget “commissar” once threatened by some creditors, but the effect may be pretty much the same.
So will this actually get done?
We will see.
Forcing a sovereign country to modify its constitution is a very serious thing. If I was a Greek citizen, I would be highly insulted by this.
#6 Several European Parliaments Still Need To Approve This Deal
The German Parliament still must approve this new agreement. This is also the case for the Netherlands and Finland as well.
Many politicians in all three nations have been highly critical of the Greek bailouts.
It is expected that all of these parliaments will approve this deal, but you just never know.
#7 Private Investors Still Have To Agree To This New Deal
Private investors are being asked to take a massive “haircut” on Greek debt. The following is how the size of the “haircut” was described by a USA Today article….
Banks, pension funds and other private investors are being asked to forgive some €107 billion ($142 billion) of the total €206 billion ($273 billion) in devalued Greek government bonds they hold.
There is absolutely no guarantee that a solid majority of private investors will agree to this.
In the end, probably the only thing that is guaranteed is that litigation regarding this “haircut” is likely to stretch on for many years to come.
#8 The Global Financial Community Still Expects Greece To Default
Almost all of the analysts that were projecting a chaotic Greek debt default are still projecting one today. Yes, many of them believe that “the can has been kicked down the road” for a few months, but most of them are still convinced that a default by Greece is inevitable.
The following comes from a Bloomberg article that was released after the Greek debt deal was announced….
“The danger of Greece saving itself into economic depression and having to default and exit the common currency zone remains substantial,” said Christian Schulz, an economist at Berenberg Bank in London. Jennifer McKeown of Capital Economics Ltd. repeated her forecast that Greece will quit the euro by the end of the year.
The odds that this agreement will survive for very long are not great.
It will be nearly impossible for Greece to meet all of the conditions being imposed upon it by this new deal. All of the politicians in northern Europe that are just itching to cut off aid to Greece will soon have the excuse that they need for doing so.
And the Greek people could decide to bring all of this to an end very quickly. If they elect a new government in April that does not support this bailout agreement, the game will be over.
So don’t be fooled by all the headlines.
A chaotic Greek debt default has not been averted.
The truth is that a chaotic Greek debt default is now closer than ever.
 Any financial system that is based on debt is doomed to fail. Today, we are living in the greatest debt bubble that the world has ever seen, and if all of a sudden people could not use credit to buy things our economy would immediately ground to a halt. Unfortunately, no debt bubble can last forever. When this current debt bubble finally bursts, faith in the financial system is going to disappear, credit is going to freeze up and there is going to be a massive wave of bank failures. Right now, Greece is a warning sign for the world. Nobody wants to lend money to Greece, the Greek banking system is dying, one out of every four businesses has already shut down, unemployment is soaring and the Greek economy has now been in recession for five years in a row. Sadly, the economic implosion in Greece is rapidly accelerating. The Greek economy shrunk at a 7 percent annual rate during the 4th quarter of 2011. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Things were supposed to be getting better in Greece by now. But instead the Greek depression is getting even worse, and very soon the rest of the world is going to be going through what Greece is currently experiencing.
Unfortunately, most in the mainstream media are treating what is happening in Greece as an “isolated incident” rather than as a very serious warning sign for the world.
Thankfully, there are at least a few reporters out there that are realizing the gravity of the situation. The following is how one reporter from the New York Times recently described what life is like in Greece now….
By many indicators, Greece is devolving into something unprecedented in modern Western experience. A quarter of all Greek companies have gone out of business since 2009, and half of all small businesses in the country say they are unable to meet payroll. The suicide rate increased by 40 percent in the first half of 2011. A barter economy has sprung up, as people try to work around a broken financial system. Nearly half the population under 25 is unemployed. Last September, organizers of a government-sponsored seminar on emigrating to Australia, an event that drew 42 people a year earlier, were overwhelmed when 12,000 people signed up. Greek bankers told me that people had taken about one-third of their money out of their accounts; many, it seems, were keeping what savings they had under their beds or buried in their backyards. One banker, part of whose job these days is persuading people to keep their money in the bank, said to me, “Who would trust a Greek bank?”
Can you imagine?
Greece is experiencing a full-blown economic collapse and nobody can see a light at the end of the tunnel at this point.
As I have written about previously, the overall rate of unemployment in Greece has now risen above 20 percent and the youth unemployment rate in Greece has soared to an astounding 48 percent.
Deleveraging can be an extremely painful process. Greece has been forced to try to reduce the size of its budget deficit, but every time it cuts government spending that causes economic activity (and thus government revenues) to slow down as well.
Now the EU and the IMF are demanding that even more very painful austerity measures be implemented in Greece even though Greece is already experiencing a full-blown depression.
The EU and the IMF are demanding that Greece fire 15,000 more government workers immediately and a total of 150,000 government workers by 2015.
The EU and the IMF are demanding that wages for government workers be cut by another 20 percent.
The EU and the IMF are demanding that the minimum wage be slashed by more than 20 percent.
The EU and the IMF are also demanding significant reductions in unemployment benefits and pension benefits.
Of course all of those cuts are going to make the short-term economic conditions in Greece even worse.
The rioting, looting and burning of buildings that we are witnessing right now in Greece is likely to continue for quite some time as exasperated citizens attempt to express their frustrations to politicians that simply do not seem to care.
According to the National Confederation of Greek Commerce, recent rioting resulted in damage to 153 businesses in Athens. 45 of those businesses were totally destroyed.
You can view some stunning footage of the current rioting in Greece right here.
Despite all of the austerity measures that have already been implemented, the truth is that Greece is very likely to default soon anyway.
There is a very good chance that the new austerity agreement that the Greek parliament just approved will never be implemented. There are new elections scheduled for April and the current party in power is polling in the single digits.
The new Greek government is likely to look much different from the current one, and nobody knows for sure if the new government will follow through on any of the promises being made by the current government.
In addition, the German parliament must approve this new deal with Greece, and the German parliament is not scheduled to vote on it until February 27th. Considering the mood in Germany right now, approval is not guaranteed.
So there are all kinds of things that could go wrong with the “deals” that are currently being discussed. The truth is that a Greek default in the coming months seems to become more likely by the day.
Some in the financial world almost seem eager for a Greek default. The following is what Jon Moulton, the chairman of Better Capital, recently told CNBC….
“If I was Greek, I wouldn’t be going for these measures, I’d be going for default and getting it over with. Would you like two to three years of pain or 20?”
But a disorderly Greek default would not be a pleasant thing for the global economy at all. A recent article in the Guardian detailed what some of the consequences of a Greek default and exit from the eurozone might be….
But default and “re-drachmatisation” would be a costly and chaotic process. In the long term the euro might be strengthened if some of its weaker members headed for the door. But in the short term banks across the eurozone might have to be closed to prevent a run on the single currency as investors speculated about which country might be next. A new wave of bank nationalisations would be likely to follow as lenders counted their losses on now worthless Greek debt.
Capital controls would have to be imposed and borders shut to stop money flooding out of Greece. Portugal, Italy and Spain would come under intense pressure from investors wary about the risk of another victim. Banks everywhere, already reluctant to lend, would cut back hard, nervous about their exposure to the bonds of all Europe’s crisis-hit states.
And the financial crisis in Europe is going to continue to spread well beyond Greece. Moody’s Investors Service just downgraded the credit ratings of six European nations. The following is how Bloomberg described the downgrades….
Spain was downgraded to A3 from A1 with a negative outlook, Italy was downgraded to A3 from A2 with a negative outlook and Portugal was downgraded to Ba3 from Ba2 with a negative outlook, Moody’s said. It also reduced the ratings of Slovakia, Slovenia and Malta.
Countries such as Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Hungary are heading down the exact same road that Greece has gone. Greece was the first one to experience a full-blown depression, but soon Greece will have a lot of company.
Greece is most definitely a warning sign for the world. If you keep recklessly piling up debt, eventually a day of reckoning comes. It is inevitable.
But Barack Obama does not seem to understand this. He continues to pile another 150 million dollars on to our national debt every single hour. He knows that cutting spending significantly right now would hurt the economy and that would significantly hurt his chances for another term.
Needless to say, Barack Obama is not likely to do anything that is going to significantly hurt his chances for another four years in the White House.
So we continue to roll on toward disaster.
The U.S. financial system is like a car with no brakes that is heading straight toward a 5,000 foot drop at 100 miles an hour.
It is all going to seem like fun and games to some people until we hit the canyon floor.
Once that happens, nobody will be laughing.
 Do you want to see what a 21st century economic depression looks like? Just look at Greece. Once upon a time, the Greek economy was thriving, the Greek government was borrowing money like there was no tomorrow and Greek citizens were thoroughly enjoying the bubble of false prosperity that all that debt created. Those that warned that Greece was headed for a financial collapse were laughed at and were called “doom and gloomers”. Well, nobody is laughing now. You see, the truth is that debt is a very cruel master. Greeks were able to live way beyond their means for many, many years but eventually a day of reckoning arrived. At this point, the Greek economy has been in a recession for five years in a row, and the economic crisis in that country is rapidly getting even worse. It was just recently announced that the overall rate of unemployment in Greece has soared above 20 percent and the youth unemployment rate has risen to an astounding 48 percent. One out of every five retail stores has been shut down and parents are literally abandoning children in the streets. The frightening thing is that this is just the beginning. Things are going to get a lot worse in Greece. And in case you haven’t been paying attention, these kinds of conditions are coming to the United States as well. We are heading down the exact same road as Greece went down, and the economic pain that this country is eventually going to suffer is going to be beyond anything that most Americans would dare to imagine.
All debt spirals eventually come to an end. For years, Greece borrowed huge amounts of very cheap money, but there came a point when the debt became absolutely strangling and the rest of the world refused to lend the Greek government money at such cheap rates anymore.
Greece would have defaulted long before now if the EU and the IMF had not stepped in to bail them out. But along with those bailouts came strings. The EU and the IMF insisted that the Greek government cut spending and raise taxes.
Well, those spending cuts and tax increases caused the economy to slow down. Tax revenues decreased and deficit reduction targets were missed. So the EU and the IMF insisted on even more spending cuts and tax increases.
Even after all of the spending cuts and all of the tax increases that we have seen, the debt to GDP ratio in Greece is still higher than it was before the crisis began. Today, the Greek national debt is sitting at 142 percent of GDP.
Now the EU and the IMF are demanding even more austerity measures before they will release any more bailout money.
Needless to say, the Greek people are pretty much exasperated by all of this. They created this mess by going into so much debt, but they certainly don’t like the solutions that are being imposed upon them.
Protesters in Greece are absolutely outraged that the EU and the IMF are now demanding a 22 percent reduction in the minimum wage.
Most families in Greece are just barely surviving at this point. Unfortunately, Greece is probably looking at depression conditions for many years to come.
Over the past three years, the size of the Greek economy has shrunk by 16 percent.
In 2012, it is being projected that the Greek economy will shrink by another 5 percent.
Sadly, that projection is probably way too optimistic.
Over the past couple of months, it has been like someone has pulled the rug out from under the Greek economy. Just check out the following numbers from an article in the Telegraph by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard….
Another normal day at the Hellenic Statistical Authority.
We learn that:
Greece’s manufacturing output contracted by 15.5pc in December from a year earlier.
Industrial output fell 11.3pc, compared to minus 7.8pc in November.
Unemployment jumped to 20.9pc in November, up from 18.2pc a month earlier.
I have little further to add. This is what a death spiral looks like.
Can you imagine unemployment going up by 2.7 percent in one month?
This is what a 21st century economic depression looks like.
And needless to say, civil unrest is rampant in Greece.
The following is how a USA Today article described some of the protests that we saw in Greece this week….
Scores of youths, in hoods and gas masks, used sledge hammers to smash up marble paving stones in Athens’ main Syntagma Square before hurling the rubble at riot police.
The country’s two biggest labor unions stopped railway, ferry and public transport schedules, and hospitals worked on skeleton staff while most public services were disrupted. Unions were planning protests in Athens and other cities around midday.
Greek citizens are exasperated by the endless rounds of austerity that are being imposed upon them. They wonder how far all of this is going to go.
How much higher can taxes go in Greece? Greece already has tax rates that are among the highest in Europe….
Greece has the third highest rate of VAT in Europe, second highest gas/petrol tax, third highest tax on social insurance contributions, fifth highest VAT on alcohol, highest property tax and one of the worst corporate tax rates, without the quality of living or competitiveness to match.
How much farther can government pay be cut? Greek civil servants have had their incomes slashed by about 40 percent since 2010.
How would you feel if your pay was reduced by 40 percent?
Large numbers of Greeks are rapidly reaching the end of their ropes. The following is from a recent article in the Independent….
“People are scared and haven’t really realised what’s happening yet,” George Pantsios, an electrician for the country’s public power corporation, said. He has only been receiving half of his €850 monthly wage since August. “But once we all lose our jobs and can’t feed our kids, that’s when it’ll go boom and we’ll turn into Tahrir Square.”
Instead of turning violent, others are simply giving in to despair. According to the Daily Mail, large numbers of Greek children are being abandoned because their parents simply cannot afford to take care of them anymore. The note that one mother left with her little toddler was absolutely heartbreaking….
One mother, it said, ran away after handing over her two-year-old daughter Natasha.
Four-year-old Anna was found by a teacher clutching a note that read: ‘I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her. Please take good care of her. Sorry.’
Sadly, there are an increasing number of Greeks that are giving up on life entirely. The number of suicides in Greece rose by 40 percent during just one recent 12 month time period.
But we haven’t even seen the worst in Greece yet. The worst is still yet to come.
And the people of Greece are going to get angrier and angrier and angrier.
According to one recent poll, about 90 percent all of Greeks are unhappy with the interim government led by Prime Minister Lucas Papademos.
This week, that government has started to fall apart. Over just the past few days, 6 members of the 48-member government cabinet have resigned. Not only is there real doubt if the new austerity measures will be approved, there is very real doubt if this government will be able to hold together much longer.
Frustration with the EU and the IMF has reached a fever pitch in Greece. Just check out what Reuters is reporting….
In a letter obtained by Reuters on Friday, the Federation of Greek Police accused the officials of “…blackmail, covertly abolishing or eroding democracy and national sovereignty” and said one target of its warrants would be the IMF’s top official for Greece, Poul Thomsen.
So what is going to happen next in Greece?
The truth is that nobody knows.
But whatever kind of “deals” are reached, the reality is that nothing is going to keep Greece from continuing to experience depression-like conditions for quite some time.
Unfortunately, Greece is not an isolated case.
Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain are all going down the same path and Europe does not have enough money to bail all of them out.
To get an idea of how much money it would take to bail out the financially troubled nations of Europe, just check out this infographic that was recently posted on ZeroHedge.
A day of reckoning is coming for the United States as well. As CNBC recently noted, the U.S. debt problem is far worse than the European debt problem is.
That is why I have written over and over about the U.S. national debt and about how the U.S. government is spending too much money.
Right now, the U.S. government is still able to borrow gigantic mountains of very cheap money and is spending money as if tomorrow will never come.
Well, just like we saw in Greece, when debt gets out of control a day of great pain eventually arrives.
What we are watching unfold in Greece right now is coming to America.
You better get ready.
 I wish that I had an “aha moment” to share with you today, but instead all I have is an “ack moment” to share. As I was analyzing all of the info coming out of Europe in recent days, I came to the following realization: “Ack! They are actually going to let Greece default!” The only question is whether it is going to be an orderly default or a disorderly default. Of course the EU (led by Germany) could save Greece financially if it wanted to. But Germany has decided against that course of action. Many in the German government are sick and tired of pouring bailouts into Greece and then watching Greek politicians fail to fully implement the austerity measures that were agreed upon. At this point a lot of German politicians are talking as if a Greek default is a foregone conclusion. For example, Michael Fuchs, the deputy leader of Angela Merkel’s political party, recently made the following statement: “I don’t think that Greece, in its current condition, can be saved.” But that is not entirely accurate. Greece could be saved, but the Germans don’t want to make the deep financial sacrifices necessary to save Greece. So instead they are going to let Greece default.
Many prominent voices in the financial world that have been watching all of this play out are now openly declaring the Greece is about to default. Moritz Kraemer, the head of S&P’s European sovereign ratings unit, made the following statement on Bloomberg Television on Monday: “Greece will default very shortly. Whether there will be a solution at the end of the current rocky negotiations I cannot say.”
You might want to go back and read that again.
One of the top officials at one of the top credit rating agencies in the world publicly declared on television that “Greece will default very shortly.”
That should chill you to your bones.
If the EU allows Greece to default, that would be a signal to investors that the EU would allow Italy, Spain and Portugal to all default someday too.
Confidence in the bonds of those countries would disintegrate and bond yields would go through the roof.
Right now, confidence in government debt is one of the things holding up the fragile global financial system. Governments must be able to borrow gigantic piles of very cheap money for the system to keep going, and once confidence is gone it is going to be incredibly difficult to rebuild it.
That is why a Greek default (whether orderly or disorderly) is so dangerous. Investors all over the world would be wondering who is next.
At the end of last week, negotiations between the Greek government and private holders of Greek debt broke down. Negotiations are scheduled to resume Wednesday, and there is a lot riding on them.
The Greek government desperately needs private bondholders to agree to accept a “voluntary haircut” of 50% or more. Not that such a “haircut” will enable the Greek government to avoid a default. It would just enable them to kick the can down the road a little farther.
But if Greece is able to get a 50% haircut from private investors, then why shouldn’t Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland all get one?
Once you start playing the haircut game, it is hard to stop it and it rapidly erodes confidence in the financial system.
This point was beautifully made in a recent article by John Mauldin….
So our problem country goes to its lenders and says, “We think you should share our pain. We are only going to pay you back 50% of what we owe you, and you must let us pay a 4% interest rate and pay you over a longer period. We think we can do that. Oh, and give us some more money in the meantime. And if you refuse, we won’t pay you anything and you will all have a banking crisis. Thanks for everything.”
The difficult is that if our problem country A gets to cut its debt by 50%, what about problem countries B, C, and D? Do they get the same deal? Why would voters in one country expect any less, if you agree to such terms for the first country?
But if Greece is able to negotiate an “orderly default” with private bondholders, that would be a lot better than a “disorderly default”. A disorderly default would cause mass panic throughout the entire global financial system.
One key moment is coming up in March. In March, 14 billion euros of Greek debt is scheduled to come due. If Greece does not receive the next scheduled bailout payment, Greece would default at that time.
But the EU, the ECB and the IMF are not sure they want to give Greece any more money. There are a whole host of austerity measures that the Greek government agreed to that they have not implemented.
Since the Greeks have not fully honored their side of the deal, the “troika” is considering cutting off financial aid. The following comes from the New York Times….
Officials from the so-called troika of foreign lenders to Greece — the European Central Bank, European Union and International Monetary Fund — have come to believe that the country has neither the ability nor the will to carry out the broad economic reforms it has promised in exchange for aid, people familiar with the talks say, and they say they are even prepared to withhold the next installment of aid in March.
But the austerity measures that Greece has implemented so far have pushed the Greek economy into a full-blown depression. Greece is experiencing a complete and total economic collapse at this point. The following comes from the New York Times….
Greece’s dire economic condition can hardly be overstated. After two years of tax increases and wage cuts, Greek civil servants have seen their income shrink by 40 percent since 2010, and private-sector workers have suffered as well. More than $75 billion has left the country as people move their savings abroad. Some 68,000 businesses closed in 2010, and another 53,000 — out of 300,000 still active — are said to be close to bankruptcy, according to a report issued in the fall by the Greek Co-Federation of Chambers of Commerce.
“It’s an implosion — it’s an endless sequence of implosions from bad to worse, to worse, to worse,” said Yanis Varoufakis, an economics professor at the University of Athens and commentator on the Greek economy. “There’s nothing to stop the Greek economy losing 60 percent of its G.D.P., given the path it is at.”
But Greece is not the only one in Europe with major economic problems. The unemployment rate for those under the age of 25 in the EU is an astounding 22.7%. And as I have written about previously, there are a whole host of signs that Europe is on the verge of a major recession.
Greece is just the canary in the coal mine. The truth is that the entire European financial system is in danger of collapsing.
Today, it was announced that S&P has downgraded the European Financial Stability Facility. It is pretty sad when even the European bailout fund is getting downgraded.
Of course most of you know what happened on Friday by now. Very shortly after U.S. financial markets closed, S&P downgraded the credit ratings of nine different European nations.
Only four eurozone nations (Germany, Luxembourg, Finland, and the Netherlands) still have a AAA credit rating from S&P.
But even more importantly, the nightmarish decline of the euro is showing no signs of stopping.
Right now, the EUR/USD is down to 1.2650. It is hard to believe how fast the EUR/USD has fallen, but if a major financial crisis erupts in Europe it is probably going to go down a whole lot more.
So what happens next?
Well, if there is a Greek default all hell will break loose in Europe.
But even if Greece does not default, the coming recession in Europe is going to put an incredible amount of strain on the eurozone.
Many have been speculating that Greece or Italy could be the first to leave the euro, but actually it may be the strongest members that exit first.
The number of prominent voices inside Germany that are calling for Germany to leave the euro continues to increase.
In addition, public opinion in Germany is rapidly turning against the euro. One recent poll found that only 47 percent of Germans were glad that Germany joined the euro, and only 36 percent of Germans want “a more federal Europe”.
As this crisis continues to unfold, there will probably be even more “ack moments”. European leaders have mismanaged this crisis very badly from the start, and there is no reason to believe that they are suddenly going to become much wiser.
Once again, it is important to emphasize the role that confidence plays in our financial system. The entire global financial system runs on credit. Banks and investors lend out money because they have confidence that they will be paid back. When you take that confidence away, the system does not work.
Let us hope that the folks over in Europe understand this, because right now we are steamrolling toward a credit crunch that could potentially make 2008 look tame by comparison.
***Epilogue***
Now another of the three major credit rating agencies, Fitch, is publicly saying that Greece will default….
“It is going to happen. Greece is insolvent so it will default,” Edward Parker, Managing Director for Fitch’s Sovereign and Supranational Group in Europe, the Middle East and Africa told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in the Swedish capital. “So in that sense it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.”
 The European debt crisis has just gone to an entirely new level. Just when it seemed like things may be stabilizing somewhat, we get news of huge financial bombs being dropped all over Europe. Very shortly after U.S. financial markets closed on Friday, S&P announced credit downgrades for nine European nations. This included both France and Austria losing their cherished AAA credit ratings. When the credit rating of a country gets slashed, that is a signal to investors that they should start demanding higher interest rates when they invest in the debt of that nation. Over the past year it has become significantly more expensive for many European nations to borrow money, and these new credit downgrades certainly are certainly not going to help matters. Quite a few financially troubled nations in Europe are very dependent on the ability to borrow huge piles of cheap money, and as debt becomes more expensive that is going to push many of them over the edge. Yesterday I wrote about 22 signs that we are on the verge of a devastating global recession, and unfortunately that list just got a whole lot longer.
Over the past several months we have seen quite a few credit downgrades all over Europe, but we have never seen anything quite like what S&P just did. Standard & Poor’s unleashed a barrage of credit downgrades on Friday….
-France was downgraded from AAA to AA+
-Austria was downgraded from AAA to AA+
-Italy was downgraded two more levels from A to BBB+
-Spain was downgraded two more levels
-Portugal was downgraded two more levels
-Cyprus was downgraded two more levels
-Malta was downgraded one level
-Slovakia was downgraded one level
-Slovenia was downgraded one level
This is really bad news for anyone that was hoping that things in Europe would start to get better. Borrowing costs for many of these financially troubled nations are going to go even higher.
In addition, there was another really, really troubling piece of news that came out of Europe on Friday.
It was announced that negotiations between the Greek government and private holders of Greek debt have broken down.
The Institute of International Finance has been representing private bondholders in negotiations with the Greek government about the terms of a “voluntary haircut” that is supposed to be a key component of the “rescue plan” for Greece.
Greece desperately needs private bondholders to agree to accept a “voluntary haircut” of 50% or more. Without some sort of an agreement, the finances of the Greek government will collapse very quickly.
For now, negotiations have failed. There is hope that negotiations will resume soon, but Greece is rapidly running out of time.
The Institute of International Finance issued a statement on Friday which said the following….
“Unfortunately, despite the efforts of Greece’s leadership, the proposal put forward … which involves an unprecedented 50% nominal reduction of Greece’s sovereign bonds in private investors’ hands and up to €100 billion of debt forgiveness — has not produced a constructive consolidated response by all parties, consistent with a voluntary exchange of Greek sovereign debt”
The IIF says that negotiations are “paused for reflection” right now, but they are hoping that they will be able to resume before too long….
“Under the circumstances, discussions with Greece and the official sector are paused for reflection on the benefits of a voluntary approach”
Something needs to be done, because Greece is experiencing a complete and total financial meltdown.
Back at the end of July, the yield on one year Greek bonds was sitting at about 40 percent. Today, the yield on one year Greek bonds is up to an astounding 396 percent.
That is how fast these things can move when confidence disappears.
Those living in the United States should keep that in mind.
Unfortunately, Greece is not the only European nation that is completely falling apart financially.
We aren’t hearing much about it in the U.S. media, but Hungary is a total basket case right now. The credit rating of Hungary was reduced to junk status some time ago, and now the IMF and the EU are threatening to withhold financial aid from Hungary if the Hungarians do not run their country exactly as they are being told to do.
In particular, the IMF and the EU are absolutely furious that Hungary is trying to take more political control over the central bank in Hungary. The following is from an article in the Daily Mail….
The European Union has stepped up pressure on Hungary over the country’s refusal to implement austerity policies and threatened legal action over its new constitution.
The warnings escalated the standoff between Budapest and the EU, as Hungary negotiates fresh financial aid from Europe and the International Monetary Fund.
Over the past months, the country’s credit rating has been cut to junk by all three major rating agencies, unemployment is 10.6 percent and the country may be facing a recession.
But bailout negotiations broke down after Budapest refused to cut public spending and implemented a new constitution reasserting political control over its central bank.
Slovenia is a total mess right now as well. The following comes from a recent article posted on EUObserver.com….
Slovenia’s borrowing costs have reached ‘bail-out territory’ after lawmakers rejected the premier-designate, putting the euro-country on the line for further downgrades by ratings agencies.
Zoran Jankovic, the mayor of Slovenia’s capital Ljubljana, fell four votes short of the 46 needed to be approved as prime minister by the parliament, with the country’s president set to re-cast his name or propose someone new within two weeks.
Some time ago, I warned that 2012 was going to be a more difficult year for the global economy than 2011 was.
Well, things are certainly starting to shape up that way.
Europe is heading for some really hard times. What is about to happen in Europe is going to shake the entire global financial system.
Those that live in the United States should take notice, because the U.S. financial system is far more fragile than most people believe.
Our banking system is a gigantic mountain of debt, leverage and risk and it could fall again at any time.
In addition, the U.S. debt problem is bigger than it has ever been before.
For example, did you know that the federal government is on a pace to borrow 6.2 trillion dollars by the end of Obama’s first term in office?
That is more debt than the U.S. government accumulated from the time that George Washington became president to the time that George W. Bush became president.
For now the U.S. government is still able to borrow giant piles of super cheap money, but such a situation does not last forever.
Just ask Greece.
Already there are indications that foreigners are starting to dump large amounts of U.S. debt. If this trickle becomes a flood things could become very bad for the United States very quickly.
We are on the verge of some very bad things. The kinds of “financial bombs” that we saw dropped today are going to become much more frequent. As governments, banks and investors scramble to survive, we are going to see extreme amounts of volatility in the financial marketplace.
Things are not going to be “normal” again for a really, really long time.
Hold on tight, because 2012 is going to be a very interesting year.
 The euro is a dying currency. On Thursday, the EUR/USD fell below 1.28 for the first time since September 2010. In fact, as I write this the EUR/USD is sitting at 1.2791. Back in July, the EUR/USD was over 1.45. But this is just the beginning. The euro is going to go a lot lower. At this point, there are several major European nations that are on the verge of default, the European financial system is overflowing with debt and toxic assets, and most major European banks are leveraged about as badly as Lehman Brothers was when it collapsed. Most Americans simply do not grasp the gravity of what is happening. Just because the Dow is sitting above 12000 and a few U.S. economic numbers have improved slightly does not mean that everything is going to be okay. As I wrote about recently, the EU has a bigger economy than we do and they have a bigger banking system than we do. U.S. banks are massively exposed to European sovereign debt and European banking debt. When the financial system of Europe collapses and the euro falls apart it is going to rock the entire planet. So you better look out below – the euro is coming down and it is coming down hard. After the euro implodes, nothing is every going to be the same again.
So how far are we going to see the euro decline?
Julian Jessop of Capital Economics expects the euro to fall much further….
The relative strength of the recent economic data from the US is supporting the dollar more generally, and we expect this divergence to persist as the euro-zone slides into a deep and prolonged recession. Above all, doubts about the very survival of the euro itself are likely to remain a drag on the currency. We therefore continue to expect the euro to fall to around $1.10 by the end of the year.
Others are even more pessimistic.
As I have written about previously, the head of global bond portfolio management at PIMCO believes that the euro is going to go even lower than that….
“Parity with the dollar next year is not out of the question”
Can you imagine that?
1 dollar = 1 euro?
Don’t think that it can’t happen.
But the decline of the euro is just part of the story. The truth is that Europe is on the verge of a financial collapse that could end up dwarfing the financial crisis of 2008.
Sadly, most Americans have no idea what has been going on in Europe the past few days….
-The stock of the biggest bank in Italy, UniCredit, is absolutely collapsing. Shares of UniCredit fell 14 percent on Wednesday and 17 percent on Thursday.
-Shares of another major Italian bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, fell 7.3 percent on Thursday.
-Shares of three major French banks all fell by at least 5 percent on Thursday.
-Even shares of German banks are falling like a rock. Shares of Commerzbank fell 4.5 percent on Thursday and shares of Deutsche Bank fell 5.6 percent on Thursday.
-The yield on 5 years Italian bonds is back over 6 percent and the yield on 10 year Italian bonds is back over 7 percent. Analysts all over Europe insist that that the Italian debt situation is not sustainable if rates stay this high.
-Italy’s youth unemployment rate has hit the highest level ever.
This is mind blowing news.
But what is the top headline on USA Today right now?
“Employers Impose Bans On Smokers”
These are some of the other top headlines on USA Today right now….
“Automakers Rush To Offer Apps In Your Car”
“Bargain Season At Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s”
“Does Your Dog Understand You? Study Says Maybe”
Is that what passes as news in this country?
A financial meltdown of historic proportions is happening in Europe and you cannot even find anything about it on the front page of USA Today.
Amazing.
All of us need to snap out of our television-induced comas and start waking up.
Things are about to get really bad for the global financial system.
At this point so much confidence has been lost in the euro that even the Council on Foreign Relations is admitting that the euro is a failure….
The euro should now be recognized as an experiment that failed. This failure, which has come after just over a dozen years since the euro was introduced, in 1999, was not an accident or the result of bureaucratic mismanagement but rather the inevitable consequence of imposing a single currency on a very heterogeneous group of countries. The adverse economic consequences of the euro include the sovereign debt crises in several European countries, the fragile condition of major European banks, high levels of unemployment across the eurozone, and the large trade deficits that now plague most eurozone countries.
If even the CFR is throwing in the towel, that should tell you something about what is about to happen to the euro.
There is a very real possibility that we could see the euro break up at some point during the next couple of years.
It now seems that a report produced a while back by Credit Suisse’s Fixed Income Research unit was right on target….
“We seem to have entered the last days of the euro as we currently know it. That doesn’t make a break-up very likely, but it does mean some extraordinary things will almost certainly need to happen – probably by mid-January – to prevent the progressive closure of all the euro zone sovereign bond markets, potentially accompanied by escalating runs on even the strongest banks.”
The European debt crisis just continues to get worse and worse. None of the solutions that European leaders have tried have worked. We are rapidly approaching the meltdown phase of this crisis.
As I have written about previously, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what is happening in Europe. The equation is simple….
Brutal austerity + toxic levels of government debt + rising bond yields + a lack of confidence in the financial system + banks that are massively overleveraged + a massive credit crunch = A financial implosion of historic proportions
Unfortunately, what is happening right now in Europe is eventually going to happen in the United States as well.
As I wrote about yesterday, U.S. debt is a ticking time bomb that is going to devastate the entire global economy at some point. Nobody knows when the implosion will happen, but everyone knows that it is inevitable.
When Europe falls apart financially, that is going to make our own financial system much less stable. What is happening in Europe could turn our “limited recovery” into a “major recession” almost overnight.
So keep your eye on the euro.
If the euro keeps going down, that is going to be really bad news for the global economy.
Unfortunately, the truth is that the decline of the euro is just getting started.
Hold on to your hats.
***UPDATE***
The euro continues to drop like a rock. Right now it is at 1.2721.
Michael
 Do you believe that 2012 will be more difficult for the global economy than 2011 was? Well, that is what German Chancellor Angela Merkel believes. The woman that has become the most important politician in Europe recently declared that 2012 “will no doubt be more difficult than 2011″. The funny thing is that she has generally been one of the most optimistic public figures in Europe throughout this debt crisis. But now even Merkel is openly admitting that 2012 is going to be a really, really bad year. Sadly, most Americans simply do not understand how important Europe is or how interconnected the global financial system has become. The United States actually has a smaller population and a smaller economy than the EU does. In fact, the EU has an economy that is nearly as large as the economies of the United States and China combined. The EU also is home to more Fortune 500 companies that the U.S. is, and the European banking system is far larger than the U.S. banking system. Anyone that does not believe that a financial collapse in Europe will have a devastating impact on the U.S. economy is living in a fantasy world. Americans better start paying attention to what is going on over there, because we are about to be broadsided by a massive financial tsunami originating out of Europe.
It is not just Angela Merkel that is warning that 2012 is going to be a difficult year. The following are several more very prominent individuals that are warning that bad times are on the way….
*Citigroup’s chief equity strategist, Tobias Levkovich, recently made the following statement….
“Europe is likely to have a meaningful recession in 2012″
*Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, recently said that we could soon see conditions “reminiscent of the 1930s depression” and that no country on earth “will be immune to the crisis”.
* Willem Buiter, the chief economist at Citigroup, recently said the following….
“Time is running out fast. I think we have maybe a few months — it could be weeks, it could be days — before there is a material risk of a fundamentally unnecessary default by a country like Spain or Italy which would be a financial catastrophe dragging the European banking system and North America with it.”
* Even Paul Krugman of the New York Times is sounding quite apocalyptic….
“At this point I’d guess soaring rates on Italian debt leading to a gigantic bank run, both because of solvency fears about Italian banks given a default and because of fear that Italy will end up leaving the euro. This then leads to emergency bank closing, and once that happens, a decision to drop the euro and install the new lira. Next stop, France.”
I have written quite a bit recently about all of the signs that parts of Europe have already entered a recession.
Well, in just the past few days even more numbers have been released that indicate that a recession has now begun in Europe…..
-Manufacturing activity in the euro zone has fallen for five months in a row.
-Bad loans in Spain recently hit a 17-year high and the unemployment rate is at a 15-year high.
-Government revenues in Spain have not been up to the level that was expected. The Spanish government just announced that the budget deficit for 2011 is going to end up being much larger than anticipated.
-Unfortunately, it appears that virtually all sectors of the Spanish economy seem to be slowing down….
The central bank said early indicators show that Spanish tourism, exports, spending and investment have been hit, which is likely to have led to a contraction in GDP in the fourth quarter.
Of course one of the most alarming things happening in Europe is the rapid contraction of the money supply. It is almost impossible to avoid a recession when the money supply shrinks substantially. The following comes from an article a few days ago in the Telegraph….
Simon Ward from Henderson Global Investors said the ECB’s “narrow” M1 money figures – tracked for clues on shorter-term spending patterns – show a drastic divergence between the North and South of the eurozone. “Parts of the core may avoid recession but there is no light at the end of the tunnel for the periphery. Real M1 deposits in Greece and Portugal have been falling at an annual rate of roughly 20pc over the last six months,” he said.
Right now, the rest of Europe is heading down the same road that Greece has been traveling on for several years.
Today, Greece is essentially bankrupt and is experiencing a full-blown depression. At this point, nobody in Europe is even pretending that Greece is going to be okay. The following comes from a recent Der Spiegel article….
“With debts amounting to 150 percent of GNP, Greece is de facto bankrupt. Over the course of 2011, even the leading representatives of the euro zone finally accepted this fact — after having claimed its opposite a year previously.”
Greece desperately needs relief from all of this debt, but the other nations in the eurozone do not want to provide that relief. Instead, it looks like Germany is going to ask private creditors to take an even bigger “haircut” on Greek debt than previously proposed. The following comes from a recent Bloomberg article….
“Germany’s government declined to comment on a report that it may push for creditors to accept bigger losses on Greek debt than previously agreed upon, saying only that talks on lowering Greece’s debt level may end soon.
Germany is studying a proposal to write down 75 percent of Greek government bonds held by private creditors as part of a planned debt swap to ensure greater debt sustainability”
If Germany ends up publicly proposing this, it will shatter what confidence is left in European sovereign bonds.
There is not that much of a difference between a 75 percent haircut and a full default. If investors are forced to take a 75 percent haircut on Greek debt, then the financial world will have to start wondering if it is just a matter of time before giant haircuts are proposed for Italian debt, Spanish debt, Portuguese debt and Irish debt as well.
Hopefully Germany will not be this stupid.
But something has to be done about Greece. Right now the IMF is projecting that Greek debt will reach 200% of GDP at some point in 2012 if changes are not made.
Of course Greece could cut government spending even more, but the cuts that have already been made have pushed that country into a total economic nightmare.
In a recent article, I discussed how the brutal austerity measures that we have seen have plunged the economy of Greece into a full-blown depression….
Just look at what happened to Greece. Greece was forced to raise taxes and implement brutal austerity measures. That caused the economy to slow down and tax revenues to decline and so government debt figures did not improve as much as anticipated. So Greece was forced to implement even more brutal austerity measures. Well, that caused the economy to slow down even more and tax revenues declined again. In Greece this cycle has been repeated several times and now Greece is experiencing a full-blown economic depression. 100,000 businesses have closed and a third of the population is living in poverty. But now Germany and France intend to impose the “Greek solution” on the rest of Europe.
The “solution” that the EU and the IMF have imposed on Greece is not working.
So why are all of the other troubled nations in Europe being pushed down the same path?
Just consider the following statistics out of Greece….
*The unemployment rate for those under the age of 24 is 39 percent.
*The number of suicides has increased by 40 percent in the past year.
*Thefts and burglaries nearly doubled between 2007 and 2009.
Is that what we want to see throughout the rest of Europe?
The financial path that Europe is now on was criticized very harshly recently in the New York Times….
“Every government in Europe with the exception of Germany is bending over backwards to prove to the market that they won’t hesitate to do what it takes,” said Charles Wyplosz, a professor of economics at the Graduate Institute of Geneva. “We’re going straight into a wall with this kind of policy. It’s sheer madness.”
Yes, it is sheer madness.
Right now, authorities in Europe are desperately trying to keep a lid on this crisis. The European Central Bank has been trying really hard to keep the yield on 10 year Italian bonds from rising above the very important 7 percent level. But unless the ECB is prepared to spend hundreds and hundreds of billions of euros buying up Italian debt in 2012, the yield on Italian bonds is likely to go much higher eventually.
At this point, it is hard to find any economist that is optimistic about Europe or about the euro in 2012.
One of the leading economic think tanks in Europe, the Centre for Economics and Business Research, is extremely pessimistic about the future of the euro as we enter 2012….
“It now looks as though 2012 will be the year when the euro starts to break up”
In fact, they say that there is a 99 percent chance that the eurozone will break up within the next ten years.
Terry Smith, the chief executive of Tullett Prebon, recently used language that was even more apocalyptic….
“If the eurozone crisis could be solved by confident pronouncements, it would already be saved. I would be shocked if Greece does not leave the eurozone in 2012 and this does not lead the markets to test the resolve to defend the positions of Portugal, Spain, Italy and, ultimately, France.”
Yes, there are a whole lot of people out there saying that 2012 will be more difficult than 2011.
Fortunately, there are a few nations out there that are choosing to try some different things.
We aren’t hearing much about it in the United States, but right now Hungary is actually taking some measures to get their central bank under control.
The following comes from a recent article in the Telegraph….
Hungary passed laws for its central bank in a move that experts warned could jeopardise its chances of securing international bail-out funds if it needs them. Officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have warned about the rules which will undermine the independence of the central bank. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban the country would not bow to the “European fashion that the central bank must be in a sacred state of independence”.
Of course the IMF is absolutely furious about this. The IMF is warning that there will be no bailouts for Hungary if they mess with the “independence” of the central bank.
But hopefully more countries out there will start going after their central banks. The truth is that it is the central banks and the endless debt spirals that they create that got us into this mess in the first place.
If central banking truly worked, Europe would not be in such a massive amount of trouble. The euro would not be dropping like a rock and the European financial system would not be paralyzed by panic and fear.
The reality is that central banking does not work and it a colossal failure.
For example, in the United States the U.S. dollar has lost well over 95 percent of its value since the Federal Reserve was created, and the U.S. national debt is now more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was created.
It is amazing that there is anyone out there that is still willing to defend central banking.
2012 is going to be one of the most interesting years that we have seen in a long, long time.
Yes, 2012 will be more difficult than 2011 was, but it will also be a great opportunity to wake people up.
Our world is changing faster than ever before, and the Internet has made it possible for average people such as you and I to significantly participate in that change.
Resolve to do what you can to make a difference in this world in 2012, because time is rapidly running out.
 I have learned that watching what people do is much more important than listening to what they say. Back in 2008, financial authorities in the United States insisted that everything was gone to be okay. But we all know now that was a lie. Well, right now financial authorities in the U.S. and Europe are once again trying to assure us that everything is under control and that we are not headed for a global recession. Unfortunately, their actions are telling a very different story. All over the world, bailouts are flying around as if the end of the world is coming. Governments and central banks are stepping in with gigantic mountains of money to prop up bond yields, major banks and even stock markets. What we have seen over the past few months has been absolutely unprecedented. So why are such desperate measures being taken if everything is going to be just fine? Unfortunately, debt problems are never solved with more debt, so these bailouts really aren’t solving anything. We are still headed for a massive amount of financial pain. It would just be nice if the authorities would quit lying to us and would actually admit how bad things really are.
Today it was announced that the European Central Bank has agreed to make $638 billion in 3 year loans to 523 different banks. Never before (not even during the last financial crisis) has the ECB loaned so much cheap money to European banks at one time.
This move by the ECB made headlines all over the globe. CNBC is calling them “ultra-long and ultra-cheap loans“.
European authorities are hoping that European banks will use this money to make loans to businesses and to buy up the debt of troubled European governments.
But as we have seen in the United States, bailout money does not always get spent the way that the authorities intend for it to be spent.
The truth is that the banks could end up just sitting on the money. That is what happened with a lot of bailout money in the United States during the last financial crisis.
European authorities hope, however, that European banks will take this super cheap money and lend it to European governments at much higher interest rates.
Unfortunately, global financial markets were not terribly impressed with this move by the ECB. European bond yields actually rose and the euro just kept on falling.
Every few days another major “solution” to the European debt crisis is put out there, but so far nothing has worked.
For example, the European Central Bank has already spent over 274 billion dollars directly buying up European government bonds, and yet bond yields continue to hover in very dangerous territory.
But without ECB intervention, we probably would have already seen a major financial collapse in Europe.
The financial system of Europe is a total mess right now, and everyone is becoming incredibly dependent on the ECB. The following comes from a recent Reuters article….
One of the key factors certain to have boosted demand is that banks are now more reliant than ever on central bank funds. The ECB said on Monday, in its semi-annual Financial Stability Review, that this dependency could be difficult to cure.
French banks have almost quadrupled their intake of ECB money since June to 150 billion euros, while banks in Italy and Spain are each taking more than 100 billion euros.
At this point, the ECB has the weight of the entire world on its shoulders. One false move and we could see a huge wave of bank failures and we could be plunged into a major global recession.
But even with all of this unprecedented assistance, we have already seen some big time European banks fail.
Back in Obtober, Dexia was the first major European bank to be bailed out, and the cost of that bailout is going to exceed 100 billion dollars.
The funny thing is that Dexia actually passed the banking stress test that was conducted earlier this year with flying colors.
So what does that say about all of the other major European banks that did not do so well on the stress test?
In addition, it was recently announced that Germany’s second largest bank is going to need a bailout.
The following comes from a Sky News report….
Germany’s second largest bank, Commerzbank, is reportedly in discussions with the German government about a bailout after regulators said it needed to raise more money to cope with a potential default on its loans to governments.
“Intense talks” have been going on for several days, according to sources who spoke to the news agency Reuters.
Even with unprecedented intervention by the ECB, the truth is that the European banking system is rapidly failing.
In Greece, a full-blown run on the banks is happening. According to a recent Der Spiegel article, funds are being pulled out of Greek banks at a pace that is astounding….
He means that the outflow of funds from Greek bank accounts has been accelerating rapidly. At the start of 2010, savings and time deposits held by private households in Greece totalled €237.7 billion — by the end of 2011, they had fallen by €49 billion. Since then, the decline has been gaining momentum. Savings fell by a further €5.4 billion in September and by an estimated €8.5 billion in October — the biggest monthly outflow of funds since the start of the debt crisis in late 2009.
In all, approximately 20 percent of all deposits in Greek banks have been withdrawn since the start of 2011.
Other European nations are implementing draconian measures in an attempt to protect their banks. For example, in Italy all cash transactions over 1000 euros have been permanently banned. People will either have to use checks, debit cards or credit cards for large transactions. This will “encourage” people to keep more money in the banks, and this will also make it much easier for the Italian government to track transactions and to collect taxes.
But it is not just in the EU where we find unusual steps being taken.
In the UK, the Bank of England is acting like the end of the world is about to happen. The following comes from a recent article on the This Is Money website….
The deputy governor of the Bank of England today warned the situation surrounding the single currency was ‘worrying’ and that the Bank was making preparations to support British banks, should the eurozone collapse.
A temporary loan facility has been introduced as a precaution, for use in the event of contagion from the eurozone crisis endangering UK institutions, Charlie Bean said in an interview on BBC Radio 4’s World at One.
An article posted on Business Insider a while back says that Switzerland is also preparing for “a euro collapse”….
The Swiss government is preparing for a collapse of the euro, according to Swiss Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf.
She told parliament that a work group was studying the imposition of capital controls and negative interest rates to protect Switzerland from the capital flight that a euro collapse would engender
Frightening stuff.
On the other side of the world, the government of China is also taking action. In fact, China is actually injecting money into the stock market in order to prop up stock prices.
The following comes from an article in the China Post….
In a movement considered “long overdue” by some analysts, the injection of government money into the tanking stock market to prop up stock prices has been given the green light, government officials announced yesterday.
Vice Premier Chen, the topmost government official charged with the country’s financial stability, however, insisted the fundamentals of the economy and the stock market are sound, expressing his hope for continued optimism among the people.
Of course the Federal Reserve is not going to stand on the sideline while all of this is going on. In a recent article, I described how the Federal Reserve is helping to bail out European banks….
The Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of Japan and the Swiss National Bank have announced a coordinated plan to provide liquidity support to the global financial system. According to the plan, the Federal Reserve is going to substantially reduce the interest rate that it charges the European Central Bank to borrow dollars. In turn, that will enable the ECB to lend dollars to European banks at a much cheaper rate. The hope is that this will alleviate the credit crunch which has gripped the European financial system by the throat. So where is the Federal Reserve going to get all of these dollars that it will be loaning out at very low interest rates? You guessed it – the Fed is just going to create them out of thin air. Our currency is being debased so that Europe can be helped out.
If the global financial system was in good shape, all of these bailouts would not be happening.
These desperate measures are a clear sign that something is up.
The financial authorities of the world are doing their best to keep the system together, but in the end they are not going to be able to prevent the collapse that is coming.
The world is heading for incredibly hard economic times.
So is the end of the world coming?
No.
But to many in the financial world it may feel like it. The coming global recession is not going to be fun.
We have now reached a point where it has become “normal” for governments and central banks to throw money at one financial crisis after another.
At one time, bailouts were so unusual that they provoked a great deal of outrage.
Today, bailouts have become standard operating procedure.
The bailouts will continue to get larger and larger, and authorities all over the globe will do their very best to keep the house of cards from coming crashing down.
Unfortunately, they will not be successful.
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