World Economy

New World Disorder: Emerging Division Between East And West Threatens To Plunge The Globe Into Chaos

July 21, 2014July 21, 2014 by Michael

In general, over the last several decades the world has experienced an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity. The opening up of relations with China and the “end of the Cold War” resulted in an extended period of cooperation between east and west that was truly unique in the annals of history. But now things are shifting. The civil war in Ukraine and the crash of MH17 have created an enormous amount of tension between the United States and Russia, and many analysts believe that relations between the two superpowers are now even worse than they were during the end of the Cold War era. In addition, the indictment of five PLA officers for cyber espionage and sharp disagreements over China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea (among other issues) have caused U.S. relations with China to dip to their lowest point since at least 1989. So could the emerging division between the east and the west ultimately plunge us into a period of global chaos? And what would that mean for the world economy?

For as long as most Americans can remember, the U.S. dollar and the U.S. financial system have been overwhelmingly dominant. But now the powers of the east appear to be determined to break this monopoly. Four of the BRICS nations (China, Russia, India and Brazil) are on the list of the top ten biggest economies on the planet, and they are starting to make moves to become much less dependent on the U.S.-centered financial system of the western world. For example, just last week the BRICS nations established two new institutions which are intended to be alternatives to the World Bank and the IMF…

So in their summit, from July 14 to 16, the five BRICS announced two major initiatives aimed squarely at increasing their power in global finance. They announced the launch of the New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai, that will offer financing for development projects in the emerging world. The bank will act as an alternative to the Washington, D.C.—based World Bank. The BRICS also formed what they’re calling a Contingent Reserve Arrangement, a series of currency agreements which can be utilized to help them smooth over financial imbalances with the rest of the world. That’s something the IMF does now.

Clearly, the idea is to create institutions and processes to supplement — and perhaps eventually supplant — the functions of those managed by U.S. and Europe. And they would be resources that they could control on their own, without the annoying conditions that the World Bank and the IMF always slap on their loans and assistance.

This comes at a time when both China and Russia are seeking to emphasize their own currencies and move away from using the U.S. dollar so much.

Even in the western media, it is being admitted that China’s yuan is “a growing force in global finance“, and according to CNBC the use of Chinese currency in international trade is growing very rapidly…

Of the German companies profiled, 23 percent are using the renminbi to settle trades, up from 9 percent last year, while usage in Hong Kong rose to 58 percent from 50 percent and to 17 percent from 9 percent in the U.S.

Usage of the renminbi among French companies – a new addition to this year’s list – was high at 26 percent.

And of course Russia has been actively pursuing a “de-dollarization strategy” for months now. Each new round of economic sanctions pushes Russia even further in the direction of independence from the U.S. dollar, and Gazprom has been working hard to get large customers to switch from paying for natural gas in dollars to paying for natural gas in euros and other currencies. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “Russia Is Doing It – Russia Is Actually Abandoning The Dollar“.

At this point, it seems clear that Russia plans to permanently decouple from the U.S. economy and the U.S. financial system. Just today we learned that Vladimir Putin plans to make Russia less dependent on U.S. companies such as IBM and Microsoft, and any future rounds of sanctions are likely to cause even more damage to U.S. firms that do business in Russia.

But potentially much more troubling for the U.S. economy is the startling deterioration in the relationship between the Obama administration and China. Some analysts are even describing this as “a tipping point”…

One day, the United States indicts five PLA officers for cybercrimes; the next, the United States claims victory in WTO disputes over car tariffs and rare earth minerals. All this is happening while the United States promises enduring support for Asian allies, and it has moved openly to challenge the legitimacy of Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, China is busy creating facts on the ground and water. Last month, a $1 billion Chinese oil rig set up operations in territorial waters claimed by Vietnam. In the East China Sea, Chinese SU-27 fighter jets have come within 100 feet of Japanese surveillance aircraft.

This was all capped at the recent Shangri-La Asian Security dialogue in Singapore (Asia’s annual defense-ministers meeting): Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel bluntly described China’s behavior as “destabilizing, unilateral actions.” The PLA deputy chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Wang Guanzhong, accused the United States of “hegemonism.”

The mood has soured, more than the usual ups and downs of big-power relationships. The question now is not whether a “new type of relationship” is in the offing, but rather, whether U.S.-Chinese relations have reached a tipping point.

Most Americans could not care less about what China is doing in the South China Sea, but to the Chinese this is a very, very big deal. In fact, China just sent a surveillance vessel to Hawaii as a bit of payback for what they regard as U.S. “provocations” in the region.

In the old days, China would have probably never have done such a thing. But China is gaining confidence as the gap between the U.S. military and the Chinese military rapidly closes…

Away from the Chinese military’s expanding capabilities in cyberspace and electronic warfare, Beijing is growing the size and reach of its naval fleet, advancing its air force and testing a host of new missiles, the Pentagon said Thursday.

An annual report to Congress on China’s evolving military capability concluded that the modernization was being driven in part by growing territorial disputes in the East and South China seas, as well as by Beijing’s desire to expand its presence and influence abroad.

In fact, the Chinese military has grown so powerful that we are now seeing headlines such as this one in The Week: “China thinks it can defeat America in battle”.

And the Russian military has made tremendous strides as well. Putin has been working hard to modernize the Russian nuclear arsenal, the Russians now have a “fifth generation” fighter jet that is supposedly far superior to the F-22 Raptor, and they have nuclear submarines that are so incredibly quiet that the U.S. Navy refers to them as “black holes“.

If Russia and China stay united, they are more than capable of providing a counterbalance to U.S. power around the globe.

But even if military conflict is not in our immediate future, the breakdown in relations between east and west could still have a dramatic impact on the global economy.

Over the years, the U.S. and China have developed a highly symbiotic relationship that fuels a tremendous amount of economic activity all over the planet. Each year, we buy hundreds of billions of dollars of products from the Chinese. Just imagine what our stores would look like if we took everything that was “made in China” out of them. And after we send them giant piles of our money, we beg the Chinese to lend it back to us at ultra-low interest rates. This arrangement has allowed China to become extremely wealthy and it has allowed Americans to enjoy a massively inflated standard of living fueled by ever increasing amounts of debt.

So what happens if this relationship starts breaking down?

Without a doubt, it could potentially lead to global chaos.

So keep a close eye on this emerging division between the east and the west. It could end up being far more important than most Americans would ever dare to imagine.

Why Is The World Economy Doomed? The Global Financial Pyramid Scheme By The Numbers

March 20, 2013 by Michael

Why is the global economy in so much trouble? How can so many people be so absolutely certain that the world financial system is going to crash? Well, the truth is that when you take a look at the cold, hard numbers it is not difficult to see why the global financial pyramid scheme is destined to fail. In the United States today, there is approximately 56 trillion dollars of total debt in our financial system, but there is only about 9 trillion dollars in our bank accounts. So you could take every single penny out of the banks, multiply it by six, and you still would not have enough money to pay off all of our debts. Overall, there is about 190 trillion dollars of total debt on the planet. But global GDP is only about 70 trillion dollars. And the total notional value of all derivatives around the globe is somewhere between 600 trillion and 1500 trillion dollars. So we have a gigantic problem on our hands. The global financial system is a very shaky house of cards that has been constructed on a foundation of debt, leverage and incredibly risky derivatives. We are living in the greatest financial bubble in world history, and it isn’t going to take much to topple the entire thing. And when it falls, it is going to be the largest financial disaster in the history of the planet.

The global financial system is more interconnected today than ever before, and a crisis at one major bank or in one area of the world can spread at lightning speed. As I wrote about yesterday, the entire European banking system is leveraged 26 to 1 at this point. A decline in asset values of just 4 percent would totally wipe out the equity of many of those banks, and once a financial panic begins we could potentially see major financial institutions start to go down like dominoes.

We got a small taste of what that is like back in 2008, and it is inevitable that it will happen again.

Anyone that would tell you that the current global financial system is sustainable does not know what they are talking about. Just look at the numbers that I have posted below.

The following is the global financial pyramid scheme by the numbers…

–$9,283,000,000,000 – The total amount of all bank deposits in the United States. The FDIC has just 25 billion dollars in the deposit insurance fund that is supposed to “guarantee” those deposits. In other words, the ratio of total bank deposits to insurance fund money is more than 371 to 1.

–$10,012,800,000,000 – The total amount of mortgage debt in the United States. As you can see, you could take every penny out of every bank account in America and it still would not cover it.

–$10,409,500,000,000 – The M2 money supply in the United States. This is probably the most commonly used measure of the total amount of money in the U.S. economy.

–$15,094,000,000,000 – U.S. GDP. It is a measure of all economic activity in the United States for a single year.

–$16,749,269,587,407.53 – The size of the U.S. national debt. It has grown by more than 10 trillion dollars over the past ten years.

–$32,000,000,000,000 – The total amount of money that the global elite have stashed in offshore banks (that we know about).

–$50,230,844,000,000 – The total amount of government debt in the world.

–$56,280,790,000,000 – The total amount of debt (government, corporate, consumer, etc.) in the U.S. financial system.

–$61,000,000,000,000 – The combined total assets of the 50 largest banks in the world.

–$70,000,000,000,000 – The approximate size of total world GDP.

–$190,000,000,000,000 – The approximate size of the total amount of debt in the entire world. It has nearly doubled in size over the past decade.

–$212,525,587,000,000 – According to the U.S. government, this is the notional value of the derivatives that are being held by the top 25 banks in the United States. But those banks only have total assets of about 8.9 trillion dollars combined. In other words, the exposure of our largest banks to derivatives outweighs their total assets by a ratio of about 24 to 1.

–$600,000,000,000,000 to $1,500,000,000,000,000 – The estimates of the total notional value of all global derivatives generally fall within this range. At the high end of the range, the ratio of derivatives to global GDP is more than 21 to 1.

Are you starting to get the picture?

Every single day, the total amount of debt will continue to grow faster than the total amount of money until the day that this bubble bursts.

What we witnessed back in 2008 was just a little “hiccup” in the system. It caused the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, but global financial authorities were able to get things stabilized.

Next time it won’t be so easy.

The next wave of the economic collapse is quickly approaching. A full-blown economic depression has already started in southern Europe. Unemployment is at record highs and economic activity is contracting rapidly.

The major offshore banking centers in Cyprus are on the verge of collapsing. It was just announced that they will now be closed until Tuesday, but nobody really knows for sure when they will be allowed to reopen. And there is already talk that when they do reopen that there will be strict limits on how much money people can take out.

And now the IMF is warning that the three biggest banks in Slovenia are failing and that a billion euros will be needed to bail them out.

The dominoes are starting to tumble, and the United States won’t be immune. In fact, the greatest financial problems that the United States has ever seen are on the horizon.

But you can just have faith that Ben Bernanke, Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress know exactly what they are doing and will be able to save us from the coming financial collapse if you want.

The mainstream media will provide you with all of the positive economic news that you could possibly want. They are giddy about the fact that the Dow keeps hitting all-time highs and they would have us all believe that we are in the midst of a robust economic recovery. You can listen to them if you want to.

But when you are tempted to believe that everything is going to be “okay” somehow, just go back and look at the numbers there were posted above one more time.

There is no way that the global financial pyramid scheme is going to be able to hold up for too much longer. At some point it is going to totally collapse. When that happens, will you be ready?

The United Nations Wants To Crash The World Economy In Order To Save The Environment

February 2, 2012February 2, 2012 by Michael

The United Nations says that the earth is in great danger and that the way you and I are living is the problem. In a shocking new report entitled, “Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing” the UN declares that the entire way that we currently approach economics needs to be changed. Instead of focusing on things like “economic growth”, the UN is encouraging nations all over the world to start basing measurements of economic success on the goal of achieving “sustainable development”. But there is a huge problem with that. The UN says that what we are doing right now is “unsustainable” by definition, and the major industrialized nations of the western world are the biggest culprits. According to the UN, since we are the ones that create the most carbon emissions and the most pollution, we are the ones that should make the biggest sacrifices. In addition, since we have the most money, we should also be willing to finance the transition of the developing world to a “sustainable development” economy as well. As you will see detailed in the rest of this article, the United Nations basically wants to crash the world economy in order to save the environment. Considering the fact that the U.S. and Europe are in the midst of a horrible economic crisis and are already drowning in debt, this is something that we simply cannot afford.

There is certainly nothing wrong with taking care of the environment. But what the United Nations wants is a fundamental restructuring of the global economy based on flawed science.

In this new UN report, we find the following statement….

Achieving sustainability requires us to transform the global economy. Tinkering on the margins will not do the job.

This is absolutely crucial to understand.

The folks over at the UN don’t just want to change things a little.

Their goal is a radical transformation of the entire world.

According to the United Nations, if we don’t implement their recommendations the consequences will be absolutely disastrous….

But what, then, is to be done if we are to make a real difference for the world’s people and the planet? We must grasp the dimensions of the challenge. We must recognize that the drivers of that challenge include unsustainable lifestyles, production and consumption patterns and the impact of population growth. As the global population grows from 7 billion to almost 9 billion by 2040, and the number of middle-class consumers increases by 3 billion over the next 20 years, the demand for resources will rise exponentially. By 2030, the world will need at least 50 percent more food, 45 percent more energy and 30 percent more water — all at a time when environmental boundaries are throwing up new limits to supply. This is true not least for climate change, which affects all aspects of human and planetary health.

So what changes are needed in order for us to achieve a “sustainable” global economy?

Well, the following are some of the disturbing recommendations that we find in the new UN report….

Raise Prices

According to the United Nations, we need to start significantly raising the prices of things that are made in an “unsustainable” way so that they reflect the “true cost” of their production….

Most goods and services sold today fail to bear the full environmental and social cost of production and consumption. Based on the science, we need to reach consensus, over time, on methodologies to price them properly. Costing environmental externalities could open new opportunities for green growth and green jobs

That means that you and I would start paying a lot more for the basic things that we need every day – food, gasoline, etc.

Carbon Taxes

The UN report also discusses the need to use regulations and taxation as tools to penalize economic activities that are not “sustainable”….

Establish natural resource and externality pricing instruments, including carbon pricing, through mechanisms such as taxation, regulation or emissions trading systems, by 2020

This is one of the favorite things that social engineers like to do. They love to use taxation and regulations as weapons to get people to do the things they want.

Base Lending Decisions On Sustainable Development Criteria

The United Nations is actually suggesting that lending decisions be based on whether or not the money will be used for something “sustainable”….

Reform national fiscal and credit systems to provide long-term incentives for sustainable practices, as well as disincentives for unsustainable behaviour

Considering the fact that the entire global economy is based on credit, this is a very dangerous recommendation.

Green Jobs

The UN report also says that governments all over the world should seek to create as many “green jobs” as possible….

Governments should adopt and advance “green jobs” and decent work policies as a priority in their budgets and sustainable development strategies while creating conditions for new jobs in the private sector.

This is something that we have seen Barack Obama try to do, but obviously he has not had much success at it.

A New Economic Paradigm

According to the UN, the very way that we define “economic success” needs to be changed. Instead of looking at statistics such as GDP and inflation, we should be measuring what we do by how much it gets us closer to a “sustainable world”….

Expanding how we measure progress in sustainable development by creating a sustainable development index or set of indicators

So an economic collapse could actually be “good” if we make “progress” toward the goal of sustainable development.

Wealthy Countries Funding The Sustainable Development Goals Of Poor Countries

The UN report makes it clear that you and I will be paying for sustainable development all over the world in addition to paying for our own transition to a sustainable economy….

Financing sustainable development requires vast new sources of capital from both private and public sources. It requires both mobilizing more public funds and using global and national capital to leverage global private capital through the development of incentives. Official development assistance will also remain critical for the sustainable development needs of low-income countries

But considering the fact that the United States is already flat broke, where are we going to come up with all of this money?

Teach Sustainable Development To Our Children

The United Nations also believes that this philosophy of “sustainable development” should be taught to children in public schools all over the globe….

Government and non-governmental entities should promote the concept of sustainable development and sustainable consumption, and these should be integrated into curricula of primary and secondary education.

Sadly, this agenda is already being pushed on our children in schools all over the United States. When these children grow up, the concepts behind “sustainable development” will be second nature for them.

Population Control

Those that believe in sustainable development want to reduce carbon emissions by as much as possible.

When you sit down and really think about that, it becomes quite frightening.

Nearly every form of economic activity produces carbon emissions.

In fact, if you just sit in your home and breathe, you are producing carbon emissions.

So to them, you and I are the problem.

For those that are worried about man-made global warming, the math is simple.

The more people on earth, the higher the level of carbon emissions will be.

The less people on earth, the lower the level of carbon emissions will be.

So those that believe in sustainable development love to promote things that will reduce the human population of the earth.

In fact, we see this agenda reflected in one of the recommendations of the new UN report….

Ensuring universal access to quality and affordable family-planning and other sexual and reproductive rights and health services.

If more women have access to abortion facilities, then less babies will be born. For those that believe in sustainable development, that is a good thing.

But the UN has been pushing this kind of agenda for a long time.

For example, the United Nations Population Fund released a report back in 2009 entitled “Facing a Changing World: Women, Population and Climate” that included the following very chilling statement….

“Each birth results not only in the emissions attributable to that person in his or her lifetime, but also the emissions of all his or her descendants. Hence, the emissions savings from intended or planned births multiply with time.”

This population control agenda is also being heavily promoted by many of the wealthiest people in the world. Many big “philanthropists” such as Bill Gates are using their money to fund research into population control measures. For example, Gates is currently funding research on “cutting edge” forms of birth control that could potentially be used all over the world. The following comes from a recent Natural News article….

Mass vaccination is apparently not the only depopulation strategy being employed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as new research funded by the organization has developed a way to deliberately destroy sperm using ultrasound technology. BBC News reports that the Gates Foundation awarded a grant to researchers from the University of North Carolina (UNC) to develop this new method of contraception.

For their study, the UNC team tested ultrasound on lab rats and found that two 15-minute doses “significantly reduced” both sperm counts and sperm integrity. When administered two days apart through warm salt water, ultrasound caused the rats’ sperm counts to drop below ten million sperm per milliliter, which is five million less than the “sub-fertile” range, and stay that way for up to six months.

This population control agenda is one of the most frightening elements of sustainable development. Many advocates of sustainable development would actually cheer if something suddenly caused the population of the earth to drop dramatically.

Much Stronger Global Governance

The new UN report also advocates stronger “international governance” by bodies such as the United Nations….

International institutions have a critical role. International governance for sustainable development must be strengthened by using existing institutions more dynamically and by considering the creation of a global sustainable development council and the adoption of sustainable development goals

But this has been the ultimate goal of these control freaks for a long time. The idea is that a “global government” and a “global economy” will bring a great era of peace and prosperity to all of humanity.

Of course that is a complete and total lie, but there are a lot of people out there that actually believe this stuff.

In fact, the economic crisis that we are going through right now has renewed calls for a “global currency” which would be used by the whole world.

For example, you can watch banker Evelyn de Rothschild discuss the “need” for an “international currency” on Bloomberg Television in the following video….

The new UN report reflects this globalist agenda. The report states that “the peoples of the world” are not going to put up with all of this “inequality” any longer and that they will be demanding that their national governments adopt a “sustainable development” agenda….

“The peoples of the world will simply not tolerate continued environmental devastation or the persistent inequality which offends deeply held universal principles of social justice. Citizens will no longer accept governments and corporations breaching their compact with them as custodians of a sustainable future for all. More generally, international, national and local governance across the world must fully embrace the requirements of a sustainable development future, as must civil society and the private sector.”

If you want to get a really good idea of what a “sustainable development” society would look like, just check out the video posted below….

If you do not want to end up living in a “Planned-opolis” where virtually everything you do is watched, tracked and controlled by bureaucratic control freaks, then you better say something now.

If the United Nations actually succeeded in implementing this agenda worldwide, it would crash the global economy and it would be the end of national sovereignty.

Unfortunately, many of those that are promoting this agenda are absolute fanatics about it because they are convinced that they are saving the planet. They are so obsessed with “rescuing the earth” that they would do almost anything to all the rest of us in order to accomplish that goal.

Yes, we need to be concerned about the future of the planet, but the truth is that the “sustainable development” agenda is based on flawed science and it would make our economic problems far worse.

But the control freaks that are obsessed with “sustainable development” are going to continue to try to cram this agenda down our throats, so this is a battle that is likely to go on for many years.

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

August 18, 2011August 18, 2011 by Michael

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.

The following are 20 signs that we could be headed for an economic apocalypse in 2012….

#1 Back in 2008 we saw major rioting around the world due to soaring food prices, and now global food prices are on the rise again. Global food prices in July were 33 percent higher than they were one year ago. Price increases for staples such as maize (up 84 percent), sugar (up 62 percent) and wheat (up 55 percent) are absolutely devastating poverty-stricken communities all over the planet. For example, one expert is warning that 800,000 children living in the Horn of Africa could die during this current famine.

#2 The producer price index in the U.S. has increased at an annual rate of at least 7.0% for the last three months in a row. We are starting to see huge price increases all over the place. For example, Starbucks recently jacked up the price of a bag of coffee by 17 percent. If inflation keeps accelerating like this we could be facing some very serious problems by the time 2012 rolls around.

#3 The U.S. “Misery Index” (unemployment plus inflation) recently hit a 28 year high and many believe that it is going to go much, much higher.

#4 Jared Bernstein, the former chief economist for Vice President Joe Biden, says that the unemployment rate in this country will not go below 8% before the 2012 election. In fact, Bernstein says that “the most optimistic forecast would be for about eight-and-a-half percent.”

#5 Working class jobs in the United States continue to disappear at an alarming rate. Back in 1967, 97 percent of men with a high school degree between the ages of 30 and 50 had jobs. Today, that figure is 76 percent.

#6 There are all kinds of indications that U.S. economic growth is about to slow down even further. For example, pre-orders for Christmas toys from China are way down this year.

#7 One recent survey found that 9 out of 10 U.S. workers do not expect their wages to keep up with the rising cost of basics such as food and gasoline over the next year.

#8 U.S. consumer confidence is now at its lowest level in 30 years.

#9 Today, an all-time record 45.8 million Americans are on food stamps. It is almost inconceivable that the largest economy on earth could have so many people dependent on the government for food.

#10 As the economy crumbles, we are also witnessing the fabric of society beginning to come apart. The recent flash mob crimes that we are starting to see all over America are just one example of this.

#11 Some desperate Americans are already stealing anything that they can get their hands on. For example, according to the American Kennel Club, dog thefts are up 32 percent this year.

#12 Small businesses all over the United States are having a really difficult time getting loans right now. Perhaps if the Federal Reserve was not paying banks not to make loans things would be different.

#13 The U.S. national debt is like a giant boulder that our economy must constantly carry around on its back, and it is growing by billions of dollars every single day. Right now the debt of the federal government is $14,592,242,215,641.90. It has gone up by nearly 4 trillion dollars since Barack Obama took office. S&P has already stripped the U.S. of its AAA credit rating, and more downgrades are certain to come if the U.S. does not get its act together.

#14 Tensions between the United States and China are rising again. A new opinion piece on chinadaily.com is calling for the Chinese government to use its holdings of U.S. debt as a “financial weapon” against the United States if the U.S. follows through with a plan to sell more arms to Taiwan. The U.S. and China are the two biggest economies in the world, so any trouble between them would mean economic trouble for the rest of the globe as well.

#15 Most state and local governments in the U.S. are deep in debt and flat broke. Many of them are slashing jobs at a feverish pace. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, state and local governments have eliminated more than half a million jobs since August 2008. UBS Investment Research is projecting that state and local governments in the U.S. will cut 450,000 more jobs by the end of 2012. How those jobs will be replaced is anyone’s guess.

#16 The U.S. dollar continues to get weaker and weaker. This is renewing calls for a new global currency to be created to replace the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency of the world.

#17 The European sovereign debt crisis continues to get worse. Countries like Portugal, Italy and Greece are on the verge of an economic apocalypse. All of the financial problems in Europe are even beginning to affect the core European nations. For example, German industrial production declined by 1.1% in June. There are all kinds of signs that the economy of Europe is slowing down and is heading for a recession. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are proposing that a new “economic government” for Europe be set up to oversee this debt crisis, but nothing that the Europeans have tried so far has done much to solve things.

#18 The Federal Reserve is so desperate to bring some sort of stability to financial markets that it has stated that it will likely keep interest rates near zero all the way until mid-2013. The Federal Reserve is operating in “panic mode” almost constantly now and they are almost out of ammunition. So what is going to happen when the real trouble starts?

#19 Central banks around the world certainly seem to be preparing for something. According to the World Gold Council, central banks around the globe purchased more gold during the first half of 2011 than they did all of last year.

#20 Often perception very much influences reality. One recent survey found that 48 percent of Americans believe that it is likely that another great Depression will begin within the next 12 months. If people expect that a depression is coming and they quit spending money that actually increases the chance that an economic downturn will occur.

There is already a tremendous amount of economic pain on the streets of America, but unfortunately it looks like things may get even worse in 2012.

The once great economic machine that was handed down to us by our forefathers is falling to pieces all around us and we are in debt up to our eyeballs. The consequences of our bad economic decisions are hurting some of the most vulnerable members of our society the most.

As the following video shows, large numbers of formerly middle class Americans are now living in their cars or sleeping in the streets….

It is a crying shame what is happening out there on the streets of America today.

Please say a prayer for all of those that are sleeping in cars or tents or under bridges tonight.

Soon even more Americans will be joining them.

Budget Cuts?

October 4, 2011June 28, 2010 by Michael

As violent protests erupted outside, the leaders of the world’s largest economies plotted the future course of the global economy at this weekend’s G20 summit. So what was decided? Well, according to various reports in the mainstream media, it was the “deficit hawks” who got their way. Apparently the consensus of the G20 meetings was that a round of tough budget cuts is the medicine that the world economy needs. In fact, the G20 leaders all pledged to cut their respective budget deficits in half by 2013. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, one of the key advocates of budget cuts, said that the G20 nations need to walk a “tightrope” between stimulating their economies and debt reduction. But as the largest economies around the globe transition from reckless government spending to budget reductions and austerity measures, what is that really going to mean for the world economy?

Well, the truth is that as good as “budget cuts” sound, they can have some very nasty short-term side effects.

You see, there is no getting around the fact that whenever governments spend more money it is good for economic growth. The problem is that a large number of governments around the globe have been consistently spending way beyond their means for decades and now they find themselves up to their eyeballs in debt.

The exploding sovereign debt levels around the globe are not sustainable by any definition, and so it was undeniable that something had to be done.

In fact, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso put it quite succinctly during the G20 meetings in Toronto when he told the press the following….

“There is no more room for deficit spending.”

The reality is that nations such as Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy are already on the verge of default. Japan has accumulated so much debt that it makes headlines almost constantly in the newspapers over there. The exploding U.K. debt was one of the key factors that enabled the Conservatives to take power in the most recent election.

But nobody has more debt than the United States. As of June 1st, the U.S. National Debt was $13,050,826,460,886.97. The U.S. government has accumulated the most colossal mountain of debt the world has ever seen and it is exploding at a rate that is breathtaking.

So, yes, the largest economies of the world have a major problem with government debt.

But are budget cuts and austerity measures the correct solution?

It depends who you ask.

The reality is that the U.S., the U.K. and many of the other most powerful economies in the world now find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

If they continue recklessly going into debt their economies will continue to be stimulated (at least to some degree), but interest expenses will continue to spiral upwards and borrowing costs will go through the roof as credit ratings fall. In the end, nation after nation would end up defaulting and the world financial system would crash hard.

However, if the G20 nations actually do implement the hard budget cuts that are necessary to get their debts under control, it will suck a ton of money out of the system and could send the already vulnerable global economy into a devastating deflationary depression.

The truth is that neither option is a good option.

Either path is going to contain a good amount of economic pain.

So what do you do when there is no good solution?

Stephen Lewis of Monument Securities recently argued that the path of “fiscal stimulus” has been totally played out and so there is no good reason to continue to go down that path….

“Growth could be negative again as soon as the fourth quarter. There is no easy way out since fiscal stimulus has already been pushed as far as it can credibly go without endangering US credit-worthiness.”

However, Chris Whalen, a former Federal Reserve official and now head of Institutional Risk Analytics says that unless the printing presses are quickly cranked up again we are definitely headed for deflation….

“The party is over from fiscal support. These hard-money men are fighting the last war: they don’t recognise that money velocity has slowed and we are going into deflation. The only default option left is to crank up the printing presses again.”

So what is the right answer?

For now, G20 leaders have decided that budget cuts and austerity measures are the right answer.

Not that Barack Obama and U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke didn’t fight behind the scenes for additional “stimulus” for the world economy.

You see, when it comes to “Helicopter Ben”, his first instinct is to always pump more money into the economy. In fact, according to one major U.K. newspaper, U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has been fighting an intense behind the scenes war for control of U.S. monetary policy. Bernanke is reportedly frightened that the U.S. could be headed for a deflationary spiral and has been pushing the idea of a fresh injection of money into the U.S. economy.

But for now Bernanke has lost. Barack Obama has joined the other leaders of the G20 in promising to cut their budget deficits by 50 percent by 2013.

Not that we are actually going to see that happen.

We all know how reliable Barack Obama’s promises are. He was busy breaking his 2008 campaign promises before he was even sworn in.

And the day will come when Barack Obama needs to turn the economy around in order to win some votes, and when that day arrives the temptation to “stimulate” the economy with some more government spending will prove irresistible.

But for the moment, Obama is lining up with the other G20 leaders and is swearing that he is going to get spending under control.

That should settle world financial markets down for the moment, but the reality is that as all of the major economies around the world suddenly see a dramatic reduction in government spending, a substantial economic slowdown will be inevitable.

When the world economy slows down, unemployment will spike, the global real estate mess will get even worse and “austerity riots” could even break out in many areas of the globe.

So at some point, the pendulum will once again swing back towards “stimulus” and world leaders will indulge their debt addictions once again. But that will only make the long-term global economic problems even worse.

The truth is that the entire world economic system is broken. It is built on a fraudulent pyramid of debt, derivatives, central banking and paper money that is doomed to fail. But world leaders will continue to keep it alive for as long as they can.

Right now their big solution is to get all of the major industrialized nations to agree to huge budget cuts. These budget cuts, if they are actually implemented, are very likely to lead to a severe economic slowdown and potentially even a deflationary depression.

But continuing on the path that the G20 leaders were on would have resulted in a wave of sovereign defaults and hyperinflationary meltdowns.

So the G20 leaders have decided to change course and they are hoping that they can navigate the economic minefield ahead and bring our economies through all of this okay.

But in the end they are going to fail.

Is The Greek Debt Crisis Being Purposely Hyped And Manipulated?

February 1, 2013May 10, 2010 by Michael

Everywhere you turn in the financial media right now you see some “expert” declaring that the Greek debt crisis has become a “contagion” which is going to spread all over the globe and which could potentially bring down the entire world economy. Now certainly Greece has badly mismanaged their finances for decades, and without a doubt they have gotten themselves into a huge mess. But could Greece bring down the entire world economy? Hardly. The truth is that you could remove Greece from the world economy tomorrow and most people would hardly notice. The economy of Greece is only about 2% the size of the United States economy, and it takes in less than 0.1% of U.S. exports. But we are being led to believe that Greece has suddenly become the epicenter of a financial crisis which is going to bring down everything. Could it be that this Greek debt crisis is purposely being hyped and manipulated? Could it be that this Greek debt crisis is yet another example of the “problem, reaction, solution” paradigm that the global elite have employed so many times before?

Right now almost all of the governments in the western world operate debt-based economies that rely on ever-inflating amounts of paper money in order to survive. The elite international bankers of the world have made a killing by creating money out of nothing and loaning it to the nations of the world. The interest on those loans is the primary method by which the wealth of the world is slowly transferred into the hands of the ultra-wealthy. When the interest on the loans starts to become too much for a particular nation, they borrow even more money so that they can stay afloat. It is a debt trap that is designed to continue indefinitely. Even the most powerful nations in the world are caught in this debt trap. In fact, most people are absolutely amazed when they learn that it is mathematically impossible to pay off the national debt of the United States. But the United States is far from alone in that respect. Almost all of the other major nations in the world are in the exact same boat.

So what normally happens when a nation like Greece gets into big trouble is that they just go out and borrow even more money from the international bankers.

But this time the big financial powers are insisting on big budget cuts and other “austerity measures”.

So what is the deal with that?

Well, there are a couple of possibilities.

The first alternative is that the IMF and the European Central Bank actually believe that the financial situation in Greece has gotten so desperate that they could actually be forced to default on their debt and so something dramatic needs to be done. You see, the truth is that the international bankers want the game to continue no matter what. They are a parasite, and they can’t keep draining a host if the host dies. So it does them no good for the economy of Greece to completely die. So maybe they are just trying to revive the host economy (Greece) so that they can continue slowly draining the wealth of that nation.

And perhaps that is all that is happening here. After Greece agreed to the required “austerity measures”, the EU and the IMF extended to Greece the bailout loans that they needed, and on Sunday European Union finance ministers agreed to create a 750 billion euro safety net for troubled eurozone countries. The EU’s monetary affairs commissioner, Olli Rehn, says that this safety net “proves that we shall defend the euro whatever it takes.”

There are even rumors that the ECB is prepared to engage in a new round of quantitative easing. That would entail very large loans to distressed governments in the eurozone in the form of buying up their bonds.

Of course all of this “help” is just more debt that continues to put Greece into an even bigger hole, but at least Greece will not be faced with immediate default.

The second alternative is that what is going on is the financial powers of the world are deliberately hyping and manipulating the Greek debt crisis because they actually want to crash the world economy.

At this point, the debt crisis in Greece has been hyped for weeks on end, and the kind of alarm being raised about the situation is Greece just seems massively out of proportion.

After reading some of the recent news reports coming out of Europe, you would think that the world is on the verge of a financial doomsday just because of what is happening in Greece. The following excerpt from the Guardian is representative of what we have been seeing in recent days….

“The growing crisis in the eurozone threatened to undermine the global economic recovery as markets plunged across the world on fears that European leaders may not be able to contain the debt contagion spreading from Greece.”

In fact, just about wherever you turn some financial expert is coming forward with predictions that the “contagion” of the Greek debt crisis is going to spread and cause economic chaos all over the world….

Harvard University economist Jeffrey Frankel:

“What we have seen is that contagion has gone global”

Japan’s deputy finance minister, Rintaro Tamaki:

“All the financial markets are now in turmoil”

Finance Minister Anders Borg of Sweden:

“We now see herd behavior in the markets that are really pack behavior, wolfpack behavior.”

The truth is that this Greek debt crisis could end up being the first domino in a sovereign debt crisis that will sweep the globe – if that is what the international bankers want.

If the international bankers decide to cut off the ever-expanding flow of debt to the nations around the world it would create a disastrous financial crisis. Without the loans that they desperately need, country after country would plunge into an economic nightmare that most people do not even think is possible.

So would the international bankers ever do that?

They have done it before.

Just study the causes of the Great Depression.

Now there are indications that it may be getting ready to happen again.

Suddenly everyone is starting to talk about the “austerity measures” that will not only have to be implemented in Greece but all over the world.

For example, check out this recent quote from an article in the Guardian….

“Riots and strikes in Greece could be repeated in other countries which have yet to adopt their own austerity packages.”

Other countries which have yet to adopt their own austerity packages?

And it just isn’t Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal they are talking about.

Bank of England governor Mervyn King recently warned that public anger over the “austerity measures” that soon must be implemented in the U.K. will be so intense that whatever party wins this election will be out of power for a generation.

Austerity measures in the U.K.?

Not only that, but Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is publicly saying that United States citizens will soon have to make difficult choices between higher taxes and reduced social spending.

Why all of a sudden do nations all over the world have to implement austerity measures? Why all of a sudden are we all being told that we are going to have to tighten our belts?

Well, unless all of this was planned of course.

And that is exactly what some out there are claiming is happening. There is a belief by many that the financial powers of the world are going to create a world economic crisis (the problem) so that when everyone cries out for help (the reaction) they will be there with the solution they wish to propose (perhaps a world currency or increased global governance).

In fact, Pastor Lindsey Williams even claims that an individual who is from these elite circles has told him exactly what is coming. If you have never heard of Lindsey Williams you should really check out the video posted below. He was the one (based on inside information from his source) who correctly predicted a couple years ago that oil would go down to 50 dollars a barrel when at the time it was pushing up into record territory. When oil did in fact plunge down to 50 dollars a barrel people were not laughing at him anymore. Now, the same source has told him that a massive economic downturn is planned over the next couple of years….

So is Lindsey Williams right?

As with so many things, time will tell.

But when top banking officials all over the world start talking about “austerity measures” and the need to tighten our belts, it is best to start paying attention.

We are moving into a time of extreme economic uncertainty. To the folks that play around with hundreds of billions of dollars, you are nothing more than a pawn on a chessboard. If you believe that “things are always going to be good” and that the people with real power in this world honestly care about you then you are going to end up in a whole lot of trouble.

Now is the time to prepare while there is still time. Someday when the U.S. economy does completely collapse and you have done nothing to prepare it will be far too late.