Debt Problems - Part 2

Is The End Of The Euro In Sight?

The future of the euro is hanging by a thread at the moment. The massive debt problems of nations such as Greece, Italy and Portugal are dragging down the rest of the Europe, and the political will in northern Europe to continue to bail out these debt-ridden countries is rapidly failing. Could the end of the euro actually be in sight? The euro was really a very interesting experiment. Never before had we seen a situation where monetary union was tried without political and fiscal union along with it on such a large scale. The euro worked fairly well for a while as long as everyone was paying their debts. But now Greece has collapsed financially, and several other countries in the eurozone (including Italy) are on the way. Right now the only thing holding back a complete financial disaster in Europe are the massive bailouts that the wealthier nations such as Germany have been financing. But now a wave of anti-bailout sentiment is sweeping Germany and the future of any European bailouts is in doubt. So what does that mean for the euro? It appears that there are two choices. Either we will see much deeper fiscal and political integration in Europe (which does not seem likely at this point), or we will see the end of the euro. (Read More....)

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20 Signs That The World Could Be Headed For An Economic Apocalypse In 2012

If you thought that 2011 was a bad year for the world economy, just wait until you see what happens in 2012. The U.S. and Europe are both dealing with unprecedented debt problems, the financial markets are flailing about wildly, austerity programs are being implemented all over the globe, prices on basics such as food are soaring and a lot of consumers are flat out scared right now. Many analysts now fear that a "perfect storm" could be brewing and that we could actually be headed for an economic apocalypse in 2012. Hopefully that will not happen. Hopefully our leaders can keep the global economy from completely falling apart. But right now, things don't look good. After a period of relative stability, things are starting to become unglued once again. The next major financial panic could literally happen at any time. Sadly, if we do see an economic apocalypse in 2012, it won't be the wealthy that suffer the most. It will be the poor, the unemployed, the homeless and the hungry that feel the most pain. (Read More....)

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Political Theater: It Turns Out That The Republicans And The Democrats Were Both Lying To Us And That The Real Budget Cut Number Is Far Less Than $38.5 Billion

Guess what? The Democrats and the Republicans are both lying to us again. So what else is new? The truth is that the great "budget crisis" which supposedly took us to the verge of a government shutdown was just a whole bunch of political theater. Even the Associated Press is declaring that our politicians used "accounting sleight of hand" to reach the $38.5 billion budget cut figure. Not that $38.5 billion was an impressive number to begin with. $38.5 billion would just be one percent of the federal budget. But once you strip away the accounting charades, the real budget cut number is somewhere around 14 billion dollars. It turns out that the "budget cuts" include money left unspent from previous years, earmarks that were going nowhere, unused census money and programs that Obama was already planning to cut. The more you examine the "budget deal", the more it becomes obvious that the Republicans and the Democrats had no intention of doing anything serious about our debt problems. The U.S. government is still going to run a record-setting budget deficit in 2011 and both the Democrats and the Republicans are to blame. (Read More....)