⚠️ Why Is Nobody Panicking?
Just like families enjoying lunch as an avalanche barrels toward them, markets and governments are frozen. The National Intelligence Council warned this attack wouldn't overthrow Iran — and they were right. Now the consequences are unfolding: oil shocks, fertilizer shortages, and the beginning of a bond market Armageddon that could mirror Weimar Germany's collapse.
💰 The Debt Time Bomb Nobody Talks About
Our entire monetary system runs on debt that requires constant growth. Alex reveals how the loss of control over Middle Eastern resource wealth is pulling the collateral out from under Western financial institutions — triggering an unstoppable chain reaction of bad debts, central bank money printing, and hyperinflation.
🛢️ $500 Oil Is Not Science Fiction
The UK Ministry of Defence predicted $500/barrel oil by 2040. JPMorgan forecasted $380 in 2022. Global conventional oil production peaked between 2005-2009, and fracking won't save us. The Hormuz closure just accelerated the timeline by decades. This is the commodity super-cycle the world isn't ready for.
🔥 What You Can Do RIGHT NOW
Alex shares practical strategies for preserving wealth and preparing for the storm — from gold and silver to trend-following strategies that have captured every major market move for over 20 years.
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Showing posts with label Global Financial Crisis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Global Financial Crisis. Show all posts
Saturday, 28 March 2026
THE AVALANCHE HAS STARTED: Why $500 Oil Will CRUSH the West (And Nobody Sees It Coming)
Friday, 30 January 2026
Zero Hour approaching
Pepe Escobar | Strategic Culture Foundation
The hour is getting late. Virtually all pieces of the puzzle are falling into place.
Even as his "massive armada" is being deployed, neo-Caligula social posts/vociferates to Iran: "MAKE A DEAL" (originally in caps). That's maximum pressure in effect. Not even the possibility of negotiation. It's Capitulation or War.
Neo-Caligula's Top Three demands:
Iran should ditch its - civilian - nuclear program, as in total cessation of uranium enrichment.
Iran must reduce its missile program to a minimum.
Iran must stop supporting "proxy forces" - as in Hezbollah, Yemen's Ansarallah and Iraqi militias.
There's absolutely no way that Ayatollah Khamenei, the IRGC and the Majlis - the Iranian Parliament - will agree to any item on this ultimatum, dictated, of course, by the Zionist axis. Hence no capitulation.
Cue to Tehran dramatically raising the stakes.
The Majlis has already approved the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The final decision is in the hands of the Iranian government/security apparatus. This is in fact binding for the government and the military, de facto authorizing the IRGC, under full constitutional cover, to seal the Strait of Hormuz.
I've extensively written about that on Asia Times during the past decade. At the time, Goldman Sachs derivative experts were adamant: if Hormuz is blocked, before or during a full-scale naval war in the Gulf, oil may reach $700.00 a barrel.
And this will only be temporary - because the entire global economy will collapse.
Most of all, the blocking of Hormuz would trigger the detonation of the TWO QUADRILLION (caps mine) dollars derivative market - updating the initial, misleading calculation by the BIS (Bank for International Settlements), placed at $700 trillion. Over the years, several Gulf traders, off the record, have agreed with the "quadrillion" numbers.
Monday, 22 September 2025
Inside Job 2.0
Stablecoins, sell-side lies and the next financial implosion.
I was looking for something to watch on Friday night when I stumbled upon the movie Inside Job on Amazon Prime. It’s a documentary from 2010 that vividly recounts the global financial crisis of 2008.
In the first half hour of the movie, they set the scene for what led up to the crisis: all of the deregulation, speculation, derivatives, lavish Wall Street spending and euphoric attitudes that ran the show right up until the very day the world ran face-first into reality and the global economy bricked.
Watching the movie, I couldn’t help but feel like I could draw direct similarities to the market we are in today.
Sell Side Analyst Reports: Still Biased, Still Bullshit
For example, every day I wake up to a new email from a friend ridiculing a sell-side analyst note. I think to myself two things: first, it’s criminal that investment banks are allowed to put out absolutely bullshit projections while simultaneously trying to win the investment banking business of the companies they cover; and second, I can’t believe anybody on the Street takes these reports seriously.
Sell side analyst reports have become fucking embarrassing. I mean, really bad. Making excuses for non-cash generating companies that can’t even hit whatever bullshit Non-GAAP KPI metric they’re distracting the market with. Initiating coverage on SPACs based on fairy-tale TAM slides, defending “disruptive” technologies that a 4th grader knows won’t work. Calling obvious financial frauds “overblown market concerns” . It’s theater dressed up as research, and the audience is clapping like trained fucking circus seals.
Sunday, 21 July 2019
A Bank With $49 Trillion In Derivatives Exposure Is Melting Down Before Our Eyes
Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse blog
Could it be possible that we are on the verge of the next “Lehman Brothers moment”?
Deutsche Bank is the most important bank in all of Europe, it has 49 trillion dollars in exposure to derivatives, and most of the largest “too big to fail banks” in the United States have very deep financial connections to the bank. In other words, the global financial system simply cannot afford for Deutsche Bank to fail, and right now it is literally melting down right in front of our eyes. For years I have been warning that this day would come, and even though it has been hit by scandal after scandal, somehow Deutsche Bank was able to survive until now. But after what we have witnessed in recent days, many now believe that the end is near for Deutsche Bank. On July 7th, they really shook up investors all over the globe when they laid off 18,000 employees and announced that they would be completely exiting their global equities trading business…
Read more
The Economic Collapse blog
Could it be possible that we are on the verge of the next “Lehman Brothers moment”?
Deutsche Bank is the most important bank in all of Europe, it has 49 trillion dollars in exposure to derivatives, and most of the largest “too big to fail banks” in the United States have very deep financial connections to the bank. In other words, the global financial system simply cannot afford for Deutsche Bank to fail, and right now it is literally melting down right in front of our eyes. For years I have been warning that this day would come, and even though it has been hit by scandal after scandal, somehow Deutsche Bank was able to survive until now. But after what we have witnessed in recent days, many now believe that the end is near for Deutsche Bank. On July 7th, they really shook up investors all over the globe when they laid off 18,000 employees and announced that they would be completely exiting their global equities trading business…
It takes a lot to rattle Wall Street.These moves may delay Deutsche Bank’s inexorable march into oblivion, but not by much.
But Deutsche Bank managed to. The beleaguered German giant announced on July 7 that it is laying off 18,000 employees—roughly one-fifth of its global workforce—and pursuing a vast restructuring plan that most notably includes shutting down its global equities trading business.
Though Deutsche’s Bloody Sunday seemed to come out of the blue, it’s actually the culmination of a years-long—some would say decades-long—descent into unprofitability and scandal for the bank, which in the early 1990s set out to make itself into a universal banking powerhouse to rival the behemoths of Wall Street.
Read more
Friday, 24 May 2019
The Next Economic Crisis, The Looming Post-Multipolar System And Hybrid War Forever
The Impending Crisis
At one time, specifically during the post-World War 2 Bretton Woods era, it looked like as if the capitalist model could be indefinitely sustainable and avoid plunging the world into major world conflicts. That era began to come to an end during the stagflation crisis of the 1970s, and came to a complete end at the end of the Cold War which ushered in the era of the so-called "globalization" which took form of unbridled competition for markets and resources. At first this competition did not show many signs of trouble. There were many "emerging markets" created as a result of the collapse of the Soviet bloc into which Western corporations could expand. However, the law of diminishing returns being what it is, the initial rapid economic growth rates could not be sustained and attempts to goose it using extremely liberal central bank policies, to the point of zero and even negative interest rates, succeeded in inflating-and bursting-several financial "bubbles".
Even today's US economy bears many hallmarks of such a bubble, and it is only one of many. Sooner or later the proverbial "black swan" event will unleash a veritable domino effect of popping bubbles and plunge the global economy into a crisis of a magnitude it has not seen since the 1930s. A crisis against which the leading world powers have few weapons to deploy, since they have expended their monetary and fiscal "firepower" on the 2008 crisis, to little avail. The low interest rates and high levels of national debt mean that the next big crisis will not be simply "more of the same." It will fundamentally rearrange the global economy.
Read more
At one time, specifically during the post-World War 2 Bretton Woods era, it looked like as if the capitalist model could be indefinitely sustainable and avoid plunging the world into major world conflicts. That era began to come to an end during the stagflation crisis of the 1970s, and came to a complete end at the end of the Cold War which ushered in the era of the so-called "globalization" which took form of unbridled competition for markets and resources. At first this competition did not show many signs of trouble. There were many "emerging markets" created as a result of the collapse of the Soviet bloc into which Western corporations could expand. However, the law of diminishing returns being what it is, the initial rapid economic growth rates could not be sustained and attempts to goose it using extremely liberal central bank policies, to the point of zero and even negative interest rates, succeeded in inflating-and bursting-several financial "bubbles".
Even today's US economy bears many hallmarks of such a bubble, and it is only one of many. Sooner or later the proverbial "black swan" event will unleash a veritable domino effect of popping bubbles and plunge the global economy into a crisis of a magnitude it has not seen since the 1930s. A crisis against which the leading world powers have few weapons to deploy, since they have expended their monetary and fiscal "firepower" on the 2008 crisis, to little avail. The low interest rates and high levels of national debt mean that the next big crisis will not be simply "more of the same." It will fundamentally rearrange the global economy.
Read more
Tuesday, 7 May 2019
Money laundering - Why the UK does not prosecute it
"Despite the UK’s rhetoric
about wanting a “world-leading reputation for integrity” as a financial
centre, it has never prosecuted a single company or bank for money
laundering."
True Publica
A study by the CCP Research Foundation – which analyses banks’ so-called ‘conduct costs’ – revealed that the biggest 20 banks worldwide, including the biggest four in Britain, had paid or set aside £264 billion for fines in the five years to 2017. Britain’s biggest banks have paid out £71 billion for misconduct in the decade since the financial crisis. Much of these fines have related to money laundering but they were not prosecuted in the UK.
Lloyds is the bank that has suffered the
heaviest penalties with at least £23.4 billion in conduct-related costs
and write-offs since 2008. RBS is second on the list. Its conduct and
litigation costs since 2008, including amounts it has earmarked but not
yet used, add up to £20.6 billion. The bailed-out bank also agreed to
pay £3.6 billion to settle an investigation by the US Department of
Justice (DoJ) for misselling mortgage-backed securities – the bonds at
the heart of the 2008 crisis in America.
Barclays avoided a UK state bailout – but only by taking £12 billion what looks like illegal emergency funding from the state of Qatar. The Serious Fraud Office is involved.
HSBC has forked out nearly £10 billion in fines and other costs for its conduct since 2008.
In the last few weeks – Standard Chartered, the British bank has been ordered to pay $1.1bn (£842m) by US and UK authorities to settle allegations for breaching sanctions against countries including Iran.
But it doesn’t end there does it – it just keeps on going.
In 2019 alone, leaving aside Standard Chartered, the Financial Conduct Authority has dished out fines to the financial services sector at the rate of more than one a month. In total, to the 9th April, they have fined the industry or people in it collectively to the tune of £272,487,887.
What is interesting here is the missing link. British banks are world leaders in shovelling trillions into tax havens, most of it to evade taxation but a very good chunk of it is pure money laundering.
Tyrants, despots, mass murderers, terrorists, traffickers – they are just as good a customer as any as far as the banks are concerned. Here, the British government and its toothless Financial Conduct Authority fail in every sense of the word. Money laundering through British tax haven islands and crown dependencies is something the state approves of – hence the lack of fines or punishment dished out for it.
Donald Toon, director at the National Crime Agency, admitted that money laundering in the UK was “a very big problem” and estimated that the amount of money laundered here each year has now risen to a staggering £150 billion. I would think that is on the light side.
Susan Hawley is Policy Director of Corruption Watch. She worked for six years at the Corner House on corruption issues, having previously worked in the policy team at Christian Aid on ethics and corruption issues. Here is her take, (originally published a year ago), on money laundering by British banks.
Read more
Wednesday, 6 March 2019
Global Economy Is Sinking Fast, And It Will Take The US With It
SHTFplan.com
Although many declared the deceleration in the economy in December to be a “soft patch” that we’ve somehow recovered from, others aren’t so sure. The rest of the global economy is slowing down and sinking at a fairly rapid rate, and the U.S. economy will likely go with it.
According to a report by Forbes, there is no “economic immunity” for the United States once the global economy is in tatters. The report points to many problems in the global marketplace that could signal a major downturn for the economy pushing the U.S. ever closer to an unavoidable recession. When the U.S. consumer goes on strike (quits buying things for any reason), the odds of a recession skyrocket. So, it would behoove market watchers to stop ignoring the growing potential for a significant economic slowdown.
Read more
Although many declared the deceleration in the economy in December to be a “soft patch” that we’ve somehow recovered from, others aren’t so sure. The rest of the global economy is slowing down and sinking at a fairly rapid rate, and the U.S. economy will likely go with it.
According to a report by Forbes, there is no “economic immunity” for the United States once the global economy is in tatters. The report points to many problems in the global marketplace that could signal a major downturn for the economy pushing the U.S. ever closer to an unavoidable recession. When the U.S. consumer goes on strike (quits buying things for any reason), the odds of a recession skyrocket. So, it would behoove market watchers to stop ignoring the growing potential for a significant economic slowdown.
Read more
The OTHER Debt Bubbles: How Private Sector Debt Could Trigger the Next Financial Crisis
Activist Post
The $22 trillion official national debt is a much discussed problem, even as politicians exhibit zero motivation to do anything about it. But as big an economic overhang as it is, government debt isn’t likely to trigger the next financial crisis.
Yes, servicing the growing federal debt bubble will depress GDP growth, cause the value of the dollar to drop, and raise inflation risks. But the bubble itself won’t necessarily burst – not anytime soon.
As long as politicians face no political consequences for deficit spending, and as long as the Federal Reserve keeps the Treasury bond market propped up… then many more trillions can be added to the national debt.
Meanwhile, more fragile debt bubbles exist in the private sector. Unlike government debt – which carries the implicit backing of the Fed’s unlimited printing press – debts incurred by corporations, investors, consumers, and students can default.
Globally, there exists $250 trillion in debt against economic assets of around $100 trillion. The notional value of all derivatives now approaches a quadrillion dollars.
It’s been called the “everything bubble”… and it could soon lead to the “everything bust.”
U.S. household debt rose to a record $13.5 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2018. Mortgages, student loans, car loans, and credit cards represent enormous burdens even during a good economy. These burdens will prove unbearable for millions of Americans in the years ahead.
For many the financial crisis is already here:
The $22 trillion official national debt is a much discussed problem, even as politicians exhibit zero motivation to do anything about it. But as big an economic overhang as it is, government debt isn’t likely to trigger the next financial crisis.
Yes, servicing the growing federal debt bubble will depress GDP growth, cause the value of the dollar to drop, and raise inflation risks. But the bubble itself won’t necessarily burst – not anytime soon.
As long as politicians face no political consequences for deficit spending, and as long as the Federal Reserve keeps the Treasury bond market propped up… then many more trillions can be added to the national debt.
Meanwhile, more fragile debt bubbles exist in the private sector. Unlike government debt – which carries the implicit backing of the Fed’s unlimited printing press – debts incurred by corporations, investors, consumers, and students can default.
Globally, there exists $250 trillion in debt against economic assets of around $100 trillion. The notional value of all derivatives now approaches a quadrillion dollars.
It’s been called the “everything bubble”… and it could soon lead to the “everything bust.”
U.S. household debt rose to a record $13.5 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2018. Mortgages, student loans, car loans, and credit cards represent enormous burdens even during a good economy. These burdens will prove unbearable for millions of Americans in the years ahead.
For many the financial crisis is already here:
- Pending home sales have fallen on a year over year basis for 13 consecutive months.
- Farm loan delinquencies recently hit their highest level in 9 years.
- More than 7 million Americans are delinquent on their auto loan payments – an all-time record.
- Some 5.1 million people are in default on their student loans.
Saturday, 2 March 2019
The US economy is falling apart: 18 big signs
Comment: Michael seems to have spent the last ten years saying that collapse is imminent only to proven wrong every time. But he's bound to be right eventually.
One thing is for sure, the longer this global bubble of toxic derivative debt and various other debilitating factors continue to inflate, the bigger the next crash will be.
----------------
Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog
Virtually every piece of hard economic data is telling us that the U.S. economy is slowing down dramatically. Many of the pundits have been warning that we could officially enter recession territory later this year or next year, but these numbers seem to indicate that it could happen a whole lot sooner than that. But the stock market has been surging over the last two months, and at this point stocks are off to their best start to a year since 1987, and as long as stock prices are rising a lot of people are simply not going to pay much attention to the economic alarm bells that are ringing. But everyone should be paying attention, because things are really starting to get bad out there. The following are 18 really big numbers that show that the U.S. economy is starting to fall apart very rapidly...
#1 Farm loan delinquencies just hit the highest level that we have seen in 9 years.
#2 We just learned that U.S. exports declined by 4 billion dollars during the month of December.
#3 J.C. Penney just announced that they will be closing another 24 stores.
#4 Victoria's Secret has just announced plans to close 53 stores.
#5 On Thursday, Gap announced that it will be closing 230 stores over the next two years.
#6 Payless ShoeSource has declared bankruptcy and is closing all 2,100 stores.
#7 Tesla is also closing all of their physical sales locations and will now only sell vehicles online.
#8 PepsiCo has started laying off workers and has committed to "millions of dollars in severance pay".
#9 The Baltic Dry Index has dropped to the lowest level in more than two years.
Read more
One thing is for sure, the longer this global bubble of toxic derivative debt and various other debilitating factors continue to inflate, the bigger the next crash will be.
----------------
Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog
Virtually every piece of hard economic data is telling us that the U.S. economy is slowing down dramatically. Many of the pundits have been warning that we could officially enter recession territory later this year or next year, but these numbers seem to indicate that it could happen a whole lot sooner than that. But the stock market has been surging over the last two months, and at this point stocks are off to their best start to a year since 1987, and as long as stock prices are rising a lot of people are simply not going to pay much attention to the economic alarm bells that are ringing. But everyone should be paying attention, because things are really starting to get bad out there. The following are 18 really big numbers that show that the U.S. economy is starting to fall apart very rapidly...
#1 Farm loan delinquencies just hit the highest level that we have seen in 9 years.
#2 We just learned that U.S. exports declined by 4 billion dollars during the month of December.
#3 J.C. Penney just announced that they will be closing another 24 stores.
#4 Victoria's Secret has just announced plans to close 53 stores.
#5 On Thursday, Gap announced that it will be closing 230 stores over the next two years.
#6 Payless ShoeSource has declared bankruptcy and is closing all 2,100 stores.
#7 Tesla is also closing all of their physical sales locations and will now only sell vehicles online.
#8 PepsiCo has started laying off workers and has committed to "millions of dollars in severance pay".
#9 The Baltic Dry Index has dropped to the lowest level in more than two years.
Read more
Tuesday, 5 February 2019
The Coming Global Financial Crisis: Debt Exhaustion
Charles Hugh-Smith
The global economy is way past the point of maximum debt saturation, and so the next stop is debt exhaustion.
Just as generals fight the last war, central banks always fight the last financial crisis. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008-09 was primarily one of liquidity as markets froze up as a result of the collapse of the highly leveraged subprime mortgage sector that had commoditized fraud (hat tip to Manoj S.) via liar loans and designed-to-implode mortgage backed securities.
The central bank "solution" to institutionalized, commoditized fraud was to lower interest rates to zero and enable tens of trillions in new debt. As a result, total debt in the U.S. has soared to $70 trillion, roughly 3.5 times GDP, and global debt has skyrocketed from $84 trillion to $250 trillion. Debt in China has blasted from $7 trillion 2008 to $40 trillion in 2018.
A funny thing happens when you depend on borrowing from the future (debt) to fund growth today: the new debt no longer boosts growth, as the returns on additional debt are increasingly marginal. This leads to what I term debt exhaustion: lenders can no longer find creditworthy borrowers, borrowers either don't want more debt or can't afford more debt, and the cost and risk of the additional debt far outweigh the meager gains. Whatever credit is issued is gambled in speculations that the current bubble du jour will continue indefinitely.
Read more
The global economy is way past the point of maximum debt saturation, and so the next stop is debt exhaustion.
Just as generals fight the last war, central banks always fight the last financial crisis. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008-09 was primarily one of liquidity as markets froze up as a result of the collapse of the highly leveraged subprime mortgage sector that had commoditized fraud (hat tip to Manoj S.) via liar loans and designed-to-implode mortgage backed securities.
The central bank "solution" to institutionalized, commoditized fraud was to lower interest rates to zero and enable tens of trillions in new debt. As a result, total debt in the U.S. has soared to $70 trillion, roughly 3.5 times GDP, and global debt has skyrocketed from $84 trillion to $250 trillion. Debt in China has blasted from $7 trillion 2008 to $40 trillion in 2018.
A funny thing happens when you depend on borrowing from the future (debt) to fund growth today: the new debt no longer boosts growth, as the returns on additional debt are increasingly marginal. This leads to what I term debt exhaustion: lenders can no longer find creditworthy borrowers, borrowers either don't want more debt or can't afford more debt, and the cost and risk of the additional debt far outweigh the meager gains. Whatever credit is issued is gambled in speculations that the current bubble du jour will continue indefinitely.
Read more
Monday, 22 August 2016
Saturday, 30 July 2016
IMF admits disastrous love affair with the euro and apologises for the immolation of Greece
Comment: This is tragi-comedy. What this shows above anything else that the sheer stupidity of these people is beyond dispute. They were not informed?? Really? They're like spoilt children playing with people's lives. "Sorry, we destroyed a country and its its citizens. We'll do better next time and put in measures that ensure a country's wealth passes into our and the banking fraternity's coffers in a more civilised and less transparent way."
The IMF is an enabler and tool of neo-liberal economic policy thus it cannot be reformed. The only course of action is to erase it from existence as soon as humanly possible.
----------------------
At root was a failure to grasp the elemental point that currency unions with no treasury or political union to back them up are inherently vulnerable to debt crises. States facing a shock no longer have sovereign tools to defend themselves. Devaluation risk is switched into bankruptcy risk.
“In a monetary union, the basics of debt dynamics change as countries forgo monetary policy and exchange rate adjustment tools,” said the report. This would be amplified by a “vicious feedback between banks and sovereigns”, each taking the other down. That the IMF failed to anticipate any of this was a serious scientific and professional failure.
In Greece, the IMF violated its own cardinal rule by signing off on a bailout in 2010 even though it could offer no assurance that the package would bring the country’s debts under control or clear the way for recovery, and many suspected from the start that it was doomed.
The organisation got around this by slipping through a radical change in IMF rescue policy, allowing an exemption (since abolished) if there was a risk of systemic contagion. “The board was not consulted or informed,” it said. The directors discovered the bombshell “tucked into the text” of the Greek package, but by then it was a fait accompli.
The IMF was in an invidious position when it was first drawn into the Greek crisis. The Lehman crisis was still fresh. “There were concerns that such a credit event could spread to other members of the euro area, and more widely to a fragile global economy,” said the report.
The eurozone had no firewall against contagion, and its banks were tottering. The European Central Bank had not yet stepped up to the plate as lender of last resort. It was deemed too dangerous to push for a debt restructuring in Greece.
The IMF is an enabler and tool of neo-liberal economic policy thus it cannot be reformed. The only course of action is to erase it from existence as soon as humanly possible.
----------------------
Telegraph
“The possibility of a balance of payments crisis in a monetary union was thought to be all but non-existent,” it said. As late as mid-2007, the IMF still thought that “in view of Greece’s EMU membership, the availability of external financing is not a concern".
At root was a failure to grasp the elemental point that currency unions with no treasury or political union to back them up are inherently vulnerable to debt crises. States facing a shock no longer have sovereign tools to defend themselves. Devaluation risk is switched into bankruptcy risk.
“In a monetary union, the basics of debt dynamics change as countries forgo monetary policy and exchange rate adjustment tools,” said the report. This would be amplified by a “vicious feedback between banks and sovereigns”, each taking the other down. That the IMF failed to anticipate any of this was a serious scientific and professional failure.
In Greece, the IMF violated its own cardinal rule by signing off on a bailout in 2010 even though it could offer no assurance that the package would bring the country’s debts under control or clear the way for recovery, and many suspected from the start that it was doomed.
The organisation got around this by slipping through a radical change in IMF rescue policy, allowing an exemption (since abolished) if there was a risk of systemic contagion. “The board was not consulted or informed,” it said. The directors discovered the bombshell “tucked into the text” of the Greek package, but by then it was a fait accompli.
The IMF was in an invidious position when it was first drawn into the Greek crisis. The Lehman crisis was still fresh. “There were concerns that such a credit event could spread to other members of the euro area, and more widely to a fragile global economy,” said the report.
The eurozone had no firewall against contagion, and its banks were tottering. The European Central Bank had not yet stepped up to the plate as lender of last resort. It was deemed too dangerous to push for a debt restructuring in Greece.
Read More
Tuesday, 19 July 2016
The Financial System Is Breaking Down At An Unimaginable Pace
SovereignMan.com
Now it’s $13 trillion.
That’s the total amount of government bonds in the world that have negative yields, according to calculations published last week by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Given that there were almost zero negative-yielding bonds just two years ago, the rise to $13 trillion is incredible.
A year later in February 2016 it had nearly doubled to $7 trillion.
Now, just five months later, it has nearly doubled again to $13 trillion, up from $11.7 trillion just over two weeks ago.
Think about that: the total sum of negative-yielding debt in the world has increased in the last sixteen days alone by an amount that’s larger than the entire GDP of Russia.
Just like subprime mortgage bonds from ten years ago, these bonds are also toxic securities, since many of are issued by bankrupt governments (like Japan).
Instead of paying subprime home buyers to borrow money, investors are now paying subprime governments.
And just like the build-up to the 2008 subprime crisis, investors are snapping up today’s subprime bonds with frightening enthusiasm.
We’ll probably see $15 trillion, then $20 trillion, worth of negative-yielding subprime government debt within the next few months.
So this trend will continue to grow for now, until, just like in 2008, the bubble bursts in cataclysmic fashion.
It took several years for the first subprime bubble to pop. This one may take even longer. But even still, we can already see the consequences today.
A few months ago I told you about the remarkable $3.4 trillion funding gap in the US pension system.
Remember, we’re not talking about Social Security– that has its own $40+ trillion shortfall.
I’m talking about private companies’ retirement pensions, or public service worker pensions at the city and state level.
(By the way, this is NOT strictly a US phenomenon. Europe suffers its own $2 trillion pension shortfall.)
There’s zero mathematical probability that these pensions will be able to meet their obligations.
They’re already underfunded. And the problem is getting worse, thanks in part to this plague of low and negative interest rates.
You see, most pension funds must achieve a low-risk investment return of roughly 8% in order to stay solvent and pay their beneficiaries.
And making an 8% return used to be a reasonable assumption.
25-years ago, government bonds often yielded more than 8%.
So unsurprisingly, the average return for pension funds over the last 25-years has been around 8% according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators.
But that’s no longer the case.
With such a huge portion of the bond market now with negative yields, it’s virtually impossible for pension funds to keep their promises.
Even Warren Buffett has written that “[pension] funding is woefully inadequate,” and, “In a world where people are living longer and inflation is certain, those promises will be anything but easy to keep.”
Bottom line: anyone who is ever considering retirement must heavily discount the future promises of unfunded pensions and Social Security.
The younger you are, the less likely you are to receive benefits they’ve promised.
But this also gives you time to prepare and take matters into your own hands...
Now it’s $13 trillion.
That’s the total amount of government bonds in the world that have negative yields, according to calculations published last week by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Given that there were almost zero negative-yielding bonds just two years ago, the rise to $13 trillion is incredible.
In February 2015, the total amount of negative-yielding debt in the world was ‘only’ $3.6 trillion.
Now, just five months later, it has nearly doubled again to $13 trillion, up from $11.7 trillion just over two weeks ago.
Think about that: the total sum of negative-yielding debt in the world has increased in the last sixteen days alone by an amount that’s larger than the entire GDP of Russia.
Just like subprime mortgage bonds from ten years ago, these bonds are also toxic securities, since many of are issued by bankrupt governments (like Japan).
Instead of paying subprime home buyers to borrow money, investors are now paying subprime governments.
And just like the build-up to the 2008 subprime crisis, investors are snapping up today’s subprime bonds with frightening enthusiasm.
We’ll probably see $15 trillion, then $20 trillion, worth of negative-yielding subprime government debt within the next few months.
So this trend will continue to grow for now, until, just like in 2008, the bubble bursts in cataclysmic fashion.
It took several years for the first subprime bubble to pop. This one may take even longer. But even still, we can already see the consequences today.
A few months ago I told you about the remarkable $3.4 trillion funding gap in the US pension system.
Remember, we’re not talking about Social Security– that has its own $40+ trillion shortfall.
I’m talking about private companies’ retirement pensions, or public service worker pensions at the city and state level.
(By the way, this is NOT strictly a US phenomenon. Europe suffers its own $2 trillion pension shortfall.)
There’s zero mathematical probability that these pensions will be able to meet their obligations.
They’re already underfunded. And the problem is getting worse, thanks in part to this plague of low and negative interest rates.
You see, most pension funds must achieve a low-risk investment return of roughly 8% in order to stay solvent and pay their beneficiaries.
And making an 8% return used to be a reasonable assumption.
25-years ago, government bonds often yielded more than 8%.
So unsurprisingly, the average return for pension funds over the last 25-years has been around 8% according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators.
But that’s no longer the case.
With such a huge portion of the bond market now with negative yields, it’s virtually impossible for pension funds to keep their promises.
Even Warren Buffett has written that “[pension] funding is woefully inadequate,” and, “In a world where people are living longer and inflation is certain, those promises will be anything but easy to keep.”
Bottom line: anyone who is ever considering retirement must heavily discount the future promises of unfunded pensions and Social Security.
The younger you are, the less likely you are to receive benefits they’ve promised.
But this also gives you time to prepare and take matters into your own hands...
Sunday, 10 July 2016
5 Signs That This Will Be The Summer of Rage
James Corbett
The International Forecaster
The events of the past few days have played out like a slowly unfolding nightmare. A nightmare where you know the next bad thing is about to happen and all you can do is wait for it.
Well, as of press time that “next bad thing” is the carnage we witnessed in Dallas on Thursday night. Hopefully by the time you’re reading this there isn’t a next next bad thing taking place, but given how quickly these events are escalating we have to wonder if this is really the end of the cycle of violence or just the beginning.
As readers of this column know, I’ve been talking about 2016 as the year of potential civil war since the very beginning of the year, and sadly that prediction seems like it’s becoming more prescient by the day.
So are we really heading toward a summer of rage and the breakdown of society? Economic collapse? War? Let’s look at five signs that things are looking bleak for the months ahead.
Join James for this week’s subscriber newsletter as we break down the bad, the worse and the ugly on the road ahead.
Read more
The International Forecaster
The events of the past few days have played out like a slowly unfolding nightmare. A nightmare where you know the next bad thing is about to happen and all you can do is wait for it.
Well, as of press time that “next bad thing” is the carnage we witnessed in Dallas on Thursday night. Hopefully by the time you’re reading this there isn’t a next next bad thing taking place, but given how quickly these events are escalating we have to wonder if this is really the end of the cycle of violence or just the beginning.
As readers of this column know, I’ve been talking about 2016 as the year of potential civil war since the very beginning of the year, and sadly that prediction seems like it’s becoming more prescient by the day.
So are we really heading toward a summer of rage and the breakdown of society? Economic collapse? War? Let’s look at five signs that things are looking bleak for the months ahead.
Join James for this week’s subscriber newsletter as we break down the bad, the worse and the ugly on the road ahead.
Read more
Thursday, 7 July 2016
Globalists Are Now Openly Demanding New World Order Centralization
Brandon Smith
Activist Post
I have said it many times in the past — when elitist criminals start openly admitting to their schemes it means that they are ready to pull the plug on the current system. They simply don’t care anymore who knows their plans because they think that victory is inevitable.
There have been more subtle and less prominently published calls for a “new world order” in the past, to be sure. However, at no other time have I seen international financiers and their puppet political mouthpieces so brazen about calling for global centralization than in the wake of the successful Brexit referendum. It is as if the Brexit flipped a switch in the existing narrative and set loose a flood of new propaganda, all aimed at convincing the general public that central banks must combine forces and act as one institution in order to combat an economic crisis that isn’t even visible to laymen yet.
Though I predicted the activation of this propaganda campaign in my article “Brexit: Global Trigger Event, Fake Out Or Something Else?,” published before the referendum vote took place, the speed at which it is developing is truly astonishing.
Now, under the current circumstances of the previous week’s market rally post-Brexit (driven by hopes of central bank intervention and extremely low trading volume) one would think that the globalist calls for total centralization of financial policy management don’t make much sense. Where is this “crisis” that the bankers keep warning about?
As I outlined in great detail in recent articles, I believe the Brexit to be a partial trigger event for a future market disaster that has been engineered for many years. That is to say, a worldwide financial calamity has been deliberately staged in advance, and the Brexit is meant to act as a scapegoat for it. The fundamentals of the global economy have been increasingly negative for years, and the only “indicator” left to appear positive has been stocks.
Read more
Activist Post
I have said it many times in the past — when elitist criminals start openly admitting to their schemes it means that they are ready to pull the plug on the current system. They simply don’t care anymore who knows their plans because they think that victory is inevitable.
There have been more subtle and less prominently published calls for a “new world order” in the past, to be sure. However, at no other time have I seen international financiers and their puppet political mouthpieces so brazen about calling for global centralization than in the wake of the successful Brexit referendum. It is as if the Brexit flipped a switch in the existing narrative and set loose a flood of new propaganda, all aimed at convincing the general public that central banks must combine forces and act as one institution in order to combat an economic crisis that isn’t even visible to laymen yet.
Though I predicted the activation of this propaganda campaign in my article “Brexit: Global Trigger Event, Fake Out Or Something Else?,” published before the referendum vote took place, the speed at which it is developing is truly astonishing.
Now, under the current circumstances of the previous week’s market rally post-Brexit (driven by hopes of central bank intervention and extremely low trading volume) one would think that the globalist calls for total centralization of financial policy management don’t make much sense. Where is this “crisis” that the bankers keep warning about?
As I outlined in great detail in recent articles, I believe the Brexit to be a partial trigger event for a future market disaster that has been engineered for many years. That is to say, a worldwide financial calamity has been deliberately staged in advance, and the Brexit is meant to act as a scapegoat for it. The fundamentals of the global economy have been increasingly negative for years, and the only “indicator” left to appear positive has been stocks.
Read more
Saturday, 2 July 2016
Puerto Rico Defaults On $2 Billion In Debt Payments
zero
As expected, Puerto Rico will default on about $2 billion in debt payments Friday, including $780 million in constitutionally-backed general obligation bonds, as governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla has issued an executive order authorizing the suspension of payments. In addition, Garcia Padilla also declared states of emergency at the island's biggest public pension - the Commonwealth's Employee Retirement System - which is more than 99% underfunded, as well as the University of Puerto Rico and other agencies Reuters reports. The default will mark the first time a US territory has failed to pay on its general obligation bonds.
"Under these circumstances, these executive orders protect the limited resources available to the agencies listed in these orders and prevents that these can be seized by creditors, leaving Puerto Ricans without basic services," Garcia Padilla's administration said in a statement.
The suspension of payments comes just as the Senate rushed a bill to President Obama that was signed on Thursday, and the bill will now allow Puerto Rico to access a bankruptcy-like debt restructuring process for its roughly $70 billion in debt. As Bloomberg explains, the next phase will now be for the US appointed control board to begin the restructuring negotiation process. The step allows Garcia Padilla to use cash that would otherwise go to investors to avert cuts to schools, policing and health care that Garcia Padilla said would extract a heavy toll on the island where nearly half of the 3.5 million residents live in poverty.
The suspension of payments comes just as the Senate rushed a bill to President Obama that was signed on Thursday, and the bill will now allow Puerto Rico to access a bankruptcy-like debt restructuring process for its roughly $70 billion in debt. As Bloomberg explains, the next phase will now be for the US appointed control board to begin the restructuring negotiation process. The step allows Garcia Padilla to use cash that would otherwise go to investors to avert cuts to schools, policing and health care that Garcia Padilla said would extract a heavy toll on the island where nearly half of the 3.5 million residents live in poverty.
Read more
Friday, 1 July 2016
New World Order Statist Soros Speaking to the European Parliament Calls for Multi-Billions in EU 'Surge Funding'
Comment: How fitting that Soros should be giving a speech at the EU parliament. Any advice from this guy is going to make everything a whole lot worse for the ordinary man or woman, of that you can be certain.
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Robert Wenzal
Economic Policy Journal
The billionaire statist Geore Soros appeared today before the European Parliament and delivered a speech discussing what the EU should do in the wake of Brexit.
If you weren't sure Soros was an all out one world order statist before this speech, you shouldn't have any qualms after it. The speech was simply stunning in its attempt to intensify the role of the EU in its remaining sphere of power.
The 85-year old clearly wants to use the opportunity, of the British vote to leave the European Union, to take a giant leap and strengthen the EU into a greater central super-power---paid for by the subjects living within the EU region and resulting in greater coercion of the people in the sector by a more powerful EU governing body.
Specifically, he told the European Parliament that the EU should go on a massive multi-billion euro borrowing spree. "Surge funding," he called it, to restructure the EU, shore up its power and become a much greater influence over Europe.
Read more
--------------------------------
Robert Wenzal
Economic Policy Journal
The billionaire statist Geore Soros appeared today before the European Parliament and delivered a speech discussing what the EU should do in the wake of Brexit.
If you weren't sure Soros was an all out one world order statist before this speech, you shouldn't have any qualms after it. The speech was simply stunning in its attempt to intensify the role of the EU in its remaining sphere of power.
The 85-year old clearly wants to use the opportunity, of the British vote to leave the European Union, to take a giant leap and strengthen the EU into a greater central super-power---paid for by the subjects living within the EU region and resulting in greater coercion of the people in the sector by a more powerful EU governing body.
Specifically, he told the European Parliament that the EU should go on a massive multi-billion euro borrowing spree. "Surge funding," he called it, to restructure the EU, shore up its power and become a much greater influence over Europe.
Read more
Tuesday, 28 June 2016
Greenspan Warns A Crisis Is Imminent, Urges A Return To The Gold Standard
Comment: How this guy has the gall to give advice to anyone after his role in economics is beyond me.
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Zero Hedge
On Friday afternoon, after the shocking Brexit referendum, while being interviewed by CNBC Alan Greenspan stunned his hosts when he said that things are about as bad as he has ever seen.
"This is the worst period, I recall since I've been in public service. There's nothing like it, including the crisis — remember October 19th, 1987, when the Dow went down by a record amount 23 percent? That I thought was the bottom of all potential problems. This has a corrosive effect that will not go away. I'd love to find something positive to say."
Strangely enough, he was not refering to the British exodus but to America's own economic troubles.
Today, Greenspan was on Bloomberg Surveillance where in an extensive, 30 minutes interview he was urged to give his take on the British referendum outcome. According to Greenspan, David Cameron miscalculated and made a “terrible mistake” in holding a referendum. That decision led to a “terrible outcome in all respects,” Greenspan said. "It didn’t have to happen.” Greenspan then noted that as a result of Brexit, "we are in very early days a crisis which has got a way to go", and point to Scotland which he said will likely have another referendum on its own, predicting the vote would be successful, and Northern Ireland would “probably” go the same way.
Read more
-------------------
Zero Hedge
On Friday afternoon, after the shocking Brexit referendum, while being interviewed by CNBC Alan Greenspan stunned his hosts when he said that things are about as bad as he has ever seen.
"This is the worst period, I recall since I've been in public service. There's nothing like it, including the crisis — remember October 19th, 1987, when the Dow went down by a record amount 23 percent? That I thought was the bottom of all potential problems. This has a corrosive effect that will not go away. I'd love to find something positive to say."
Strangely enough, he was not refering to the British exodus but to America's own economic troubles.
Today, Greenspan was on Bloomberg Surveillance where in an extensive, 30 minutes interview he was urged to give his take on the British referendum outcome. According to Greenspan, David Cameron miscalculated and made a “terrible mistake” in holding a referendum. That decision led to a “terrible outcome in all respects,” Greenspan said. "It didn’t have to happen.” Greenspan then noted that as a result of Brexit, "we are in very early days a crisis which has got a way to go", and point to Scotland which he said will likely have another referendum on its own, predicting the vote would be successful, and Northern Ireland would “probably” go the same way.
His remarks then centered on the Eurozone which he defined as a truly “vulnerable institution,” primarily due to Greece’s inclusion in its structure. “Get Greece out. They’re a toxic liability sitting in the middle of a very important economic zone." Ironically, the same Eurozone has spent countless hours doing everything in its power to show just how unbreakable the union is by preserving Greece, while it took the UK just one overnight session to break away. Luckily the UK was not part of the monetary union or else it would be game over.
Sunday, 26 June 2016
Economic insiders warn of upcoming system failure
Stefan Gleason
Activist Post
With each passing day, systemic risks in the financial system become greater. Smart money insiders and billionaire investors are taking note - and taking defensive actions.
Mega-billionaire Carl Icahn, whose long-term track record is unrivaled, recently warned that "there will be a day of reckoning unless we get fiscal stimulus." Icahn's hedge fund is betting on a day of reckoning scenario. He has gone 150% net short the stock market while holding commodity-related positions to the long side.
International currency speculator and leftist financier George Soros has slashed his fund's overall equity holdings by 25%. Like him or not, Soros is no dummy when it comes to the financial system. He is an establishment insider who apparently sees turbulent times ahead. He owns a not insignificant amount of gold, and his largest single equity holding now is Barrick Gold (NYSE:ABX), a major gold mining company.
"The system itself is at risk," warns bond market wizard Bill Gross. In his latest market commentary, Gross cites "artificially high asset prices and a distortion of future risk relative to potential return."
Prices for financial assets such as stocks, bonds, and real estate investment trusts are artificially high because interest rates are artificially low. Thanks, of course, to the Federal Reserve. Markets are floating on a sea of leverage made possible by eight years of ultra-accommodative monetary policy and the widespread belief that the Fed will step in as a buyer of last resort to support asset prices.
Read more
Activist Post
With each passing day, systemic risks in the financial system become greater. Smart money insiders and billionaire investors are taking note - and taking defensive actions.
Mega-billionaire Carl Icahn, whose long-term track record is unrivaled, recently warned that "there will be a day of reckoning unless we get fiscal stimulus." Icahn's hedge fund is betting on a day of reckoning scenario. He has gone 150% net short the stock market while holding commodity-related positions to the long side.
International currency speculator and leftist financier George Soros has slashed his fund's overall equity holdings by 25%. Like him or not, Soros is no dummy when it comes to the financial system. He is an establishment insider who apparently sees turbulent times ahead. He owns a not insignificant amount of gold, and his largest single equity holding now is Barrick Gold (NYSE:ABX), a major gold mining company.
"The system itself is at risk," warns bond market wizard Bill Gross. In his latest market commentary, Gross cites "artificially high asset prices and a distortion of future risk relative to potential return."
Prices for financial assets such as stocks, bonds, and real estate investment trusts are artificially high because interest rates are artificially low. Thanks, of course, to the Federal Reserve. Markets are floating on a sea of leverage made possible by eight years of ultra-accommodative monetary policy and the widespread belief that the Fed will step in as a buyer of last resort to support asset prices.
Read more
Saturday, 25 June 2016
Brexistential Bloodbath - Dow Crashes 600 Points As Vol Explodes
Zero Hedge
Well they did it... and no one expected it...
Read more
Well they did it... and no one expected it...
- UK Stocks -3.14% worst since Jan 2016
- US Stocks -3% worst since Aug 2015 (biggest opening gap down since 1987)
- VIX +6pts biggest daly rise since Aug 2015 crash
- Japan Stocks -7.9% worst since 2011 (Tsunami)
- Spain Stocks -12.5% worst since 1987
- Italy Stocks -12% worst since 1997
- EU Banks -14.5% worst ever
- US Banks -4.75% worst since Nov 2011
- US 30Y Yield -14bps biggest drop since 2011
- US 2Y Yield -14bps biggest drop since 2009
- German 10Y Yield -14bps biggest drop since 2011
- GBPUSD -11% biggest drop ever
- USDJPY -4% biggest drop since 1998
- EURUSD -2% biggest drop since Oct 2015
- Gold +5% biggest day since Lehman 2008
- Crude -4.4% most since Jan 2016
Read more
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