On global economic collapse .... Wtshtf

When is the economic collapse going to happen?  Just open up your eyes and take a look around the globe.  The next wave of the economic collapse may not have reached Wall Street yet, but it is already deeply affecting billions of lives all over the planet.  Much of Europe has already descended into a deep economic depression, very disturbing economic data is coming out of the second and third largest economies on the globe (China and Japan), and in most of the world economic inequality is growing even though 80 percent of the global population already lives on less than $10 a day.  Just because the Dow has been setting brand new all-time records lately does not mean that everything is okay.  Remember, a bubble is always the biggest right before it bursts.  The next major wave of the economic collapse is already sweeping across Europe and Asia and it is going to devastate the United States as well.  I hope that you are ready.

Freedom and thinking WTSHTF

"

The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”-Frank Zappa

We need austerity

Austerity is the equivalent of cutting cancerous cells from the body so that they don't consume precious resources, and eventually you

Austerity is the equivalent of taking the credit cards of your daughters away and explaining them that you won't finance a new bag, dress and pair of shoes every day forever. And that they might have to contemplate work or finding a husband or both

Austerity is about giving breathing space to those parts of the economy that really produce,even if consumption in total goes down

Austerity is about conservation of resources on what is essential, because times are though

Good Austerity would be paired with some help to the truly poor, and cuts in the help to those who won't suffer by that

If I really had any trust in governments spending wisely, then I'd be all in favour of gov spending during recessions/depressions

Predictions from Peter Schiff

In 2006, when he faced off with many well known Titans of investing and warned of an impending financial disaster and economic collapse, Peter Schiff was laughed at by his colleagues. He urged Americans to exit financial markets and take steps to protect themselves before the wealth held in their savings accounts, retirement investments and real estate was wiped out.

Few listened.

We know what happened next.

Now, those same financial experts who publicly vilified Schiff for his predictions six years ago are at it again. Many, including our politicians, central bankers and leading economists, have unequivocally stated that the worst is behind us, and that a global recovery is on the horizon.

Once again, Peter Schiff disagrees:

“I think we are heading for a worse economic crisis than we had in 2007,” Schiff said.  “You’re going to have a collapse in the dollar…a huge spike in interest rates… and our whole economy, which is built on the foundation of cheap money, is going to topple when you pull the rug out from under it.”

Schiff says that, despite “phony” signs of an economic recovery, the cancer destroying America stems from a lethal concoction of our $16 trillion federal debt and the Fed’s never ending money printing.

…

According to Schiff, these numbers are unsustainable. And the Fed has no credible “exit strategy.”

Eventually interest rates will rise… and when they do, Schiff says, stocks will tank and bonds dip to nothing. Massive new tax hikes will be imposed and programs and entitlements will be cut to the bone.

…

“The crisis is imminent,” Schiff said.  ”I don’t think Obama is going to finish his second term without the bottom dropping out. And stock market investors are oblivious to the problems.”

“We’re broke, Schiff added.  ”We owe trillions. Look at our budget deficit; look at the debt to GDP ratio, the unfunded liabilities. If we were in the Eurozone, they would kick us out.”

…

“The Fed knows that the U.S. economy is not recovering,” he noted. “It simply is being kept from collapse by artificially low interest rates and quantitative easing. As that support goes, the economy will implode.”

A noted economist, Schiff has been a fierce critic of the Fed and its policies for years. And his warnings have proven to be prophetic.

…

His recent warnings, however, have been even more alarming.  Will they also prove to be true?

In his most recent book, “The Real Crash” How to Save Yourself and Your Country“, Schiff writes that

when the “real crash” comes,” it will be worse than the Great Depression.

Unemployment will skyrocket, credit will dry up, and worse, the dollar will collapse completely, “wiping out all savings and sending consumer prices into the stratosphere.”

…

“All we can do now is prepare for the crash,” Schiff said. “If we brace ourselves properly and control the impact, we will survive it.”

Indeed.

We must understand that none of the fundamental problems leading up to the 2007/2008 financial crisis have been resolved.

If anything, it’s gotten worse.

Our politicians will not change, and therefore, will change nothing in Washington. Wall Street is as corrupt as ever. Our central bank continues to devalue our currency. There is no end in sight for these people. They will continue on this unsustainable path until we as a country finally hit the proverbial brick wall.

As Peter Schiff notes, the destruction to life as we know it in America and the world is imminent. It’s going to be severe.

So much so that the government has been simulating the collapse of our financial system, the collapse of our society and the potential for widespread violence.

A collapse happened in 2008, but THE collapse is still ahead.

The economy is in the tank!

U. S. policymakers’ efforts to manage the economic cycle have actually made things far more volatile. Their repeated interventions have, much to their surprise, blown up in their faces a few years later. The current round of QE will be no different. We have written previously, quoting Marc Faber, that “The Fed Will Destroy the World” through their money printing. Rapid inflation surely beckons. But that will not occur without firstly a Japanese-style loss of confidence in policymakers as we dive back into recession and produce dislocative market moves.

Bit coins down and crashing 50%

“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.”
President James Madison
Truth is most people don’t realise that the issuing of money is essentially a private business, and that the privilege of issuing money has been a major bone of contention throughout history

Wars have been fought and depressions have been caused in the battle over who issues the money; however the majority of us are not aware of this, and this is largely due to the fact that the winning side became and increasingly continues to be a vital and respected member of our global society, having an influence over large aspects of our lives including our education, our media and our governments.

While we might feel powerless in trying to stop the manipulation of money for private profit at our expense, it is easy to forget that we collectively give money its value. We have been taught to believe printed pieces of paper have special value, and because we know others believe this too, we are willing to work all our lives to get what we are convinced others will want.

Prepare, be aware, learn to share

“It is said that FDR’s New Deal didn’t get us out of the Great Depression, but World War II did,” Raimondo continues. “The truth is that, in wartime, when people are expected to sacrifice for the duration of the ‘emergency,’ economic problems are anesthetized out of existence by liberal doses of nationalist chest-beating and moral righteousness. Shortages and plunging living standards were masked by a wartime rationing system and greatly lowered expectations. And just as World War II inured us to the economic ravages wrought by our thieving elites, so World War III will provide plenty of cover for a virtual takeover of all industry by the government and the demonization of all political opposition as ‘terrorist.’”

Go offshore young man...

The world has become a gigantic financial nudist colony, full of government agents who pry ever more deeper into our nether regions looking for loose change betwixt the sofa cushions. Yet people are all too willing to comply. And anyone who shows up with a bath towel is branded a criminal or financial terrorist.

Clearly there are people who use offshore jurisdictions to hide graft or fraudulent activities. But this is not unique to the offshore world.

The number 1 tax

 haven in the world, in fact, is none other than the United States of America. More ill-gotten wealth is hidden in Wall Street banks through Delaware corporations than any other place on the planet.

Yet the attention is always focused on places like the British Virgin Islands, Channel Islands, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Cook Islands, Panama, Seychelles, Hong Kong, etc.

Just yesterday, the farcically named Center for Public Integrity released a fifteen month study based on 'leaked' documents from various international financial centers. The data shined a spotlight on the financial dealings of nearly 130,000 individuals in jurisdictions around the world.

The group's assessment is anything but flattering: "This investigation lifts the curtain on the offshore system and provides a transparent look into the secret world of tax havens and the individuals and companies that use and benefit from them."

Euro problems

In 43 years, 147 banking crises around the world, and even including ridiculous banana republics and tinpot dictatorships, it seems it is only in Cyprus that they actively stole depositor money.*

In some cases (as in Iceland) depositors did lose money on bigger, uninsured deposits because banks went bust and were liquidated ... but that seems quite different from actively stealing the depositor money to re-support the bad banks or to pay off some big creditors - like the European Central Bank - which yet continue to grab Cypriot funds.

Why did the EU-ECB-IMF steal the depositor money, when even internal troika memos said this could set off disastrous euro contagion?

Several theories are out there:

(1) It is a scheme to frighten depositors around the world into spending or investing their uninsured deposits. This is supported by the sudden near-simultaneous 'leaks' of possible deposit confiscations in New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland, the US and UK.

(2) It is a desperate last-ditch scheme to prop up the petro-dollar, i.e., the US dollar as reserve currency, which is at death's door as the BRICS and half the world join bi-lateral trade agreements by-passing the dollar. As IMF chief Lagarde (worked for big American law firm) and Angela Merkel (husband works for US Pentagon companies) are both American agents, they pushed this scheme onto the EU, not caring about damage to Europe. France was so angry at this they sent police to raid Lagarde's apartment.

(3) The EU 'project' of a grand united Europe is collapsing, so the final EU 'Hail Mary' play is to catastrophically destroy the EU banking system by creating pan-European bank runs, such a huge 'crisis' they hope this will finally lead to the 'United States of Europe' against all popular wishes.

(4) The Germans, Dutch and other North Europeans are so anally-obsessive about limiting their own taxpayer losses they idiotically blind themselves to the destruction of Europe they are causing.

(5) It is a test of how much theft people will submit to, like the theft of billions of customer funds in the US in the MF Global, Peregrine Financial and Sentinel cases ... with all legal avenues blocked, and America's owners of 300 million guns remaining passive.

(6) It is part of the general ramping toward global cataclysm, World War III, etc.

More debt

How can Americans ever be expected to reverse the slide into debt-slavery if real wages are stagnating? Even when using the official government inflation numbers which understate the real level of price inflation (CPI-W until 2009 and CPI-U from 2010) real wages in America have been flat at best since 2008.

Did you notice the mysterious vertical jump in the data series between December 2009 and January 2010? It was here when the government changed the inflation index it uses to calculate real wages from the CPI-W to the CPI-U. This change from one bogus number to a different bogus number resulted in an instant jump in real wages - further distancing the illusion from reality. Why are no mainstream economists telling us about this?

This arbitrary change in the inflation formula used to compute real wages is a great example of how government numbers do not reflect real economic activity. In reality, these numbers are completely meaningless in the real world. These numbers only have value in the illusionary matrix created by the Intellectual Idiots and the central planners for us to live in. It is smoke and mirrors to hide the ongoing failures of the central planners and the Intellectual Idiots advising them.

So you think Cypress is bad

In the US, depositors have actually been put in a worse position than Cyprus deposit-holders, at least if they are at the big banks that play in the derivatives casino. The regulators have turned a blind eye as banks use their depositaries to fund derivatives exposures. And as bad as that is, the depositors, unlike their Cypriot confreres, aren’t even senior creditors. Remember Lehman? When the investment bank failed, unsecured creditors (and remember,depositors are unsecured creditors) got eight cents on the dollar. One big reason was that derivatives counterparties require collateral for any exposures, meaning they are secured creditors. The 2005 bankruptcy reforms made derivatives counterparties senior to unsecured lenders.

H

As of Dec 2012, FDIC and BOE have agreed the way forward is to take bonholder and depositor money to protect TBTF banks who are sitting on Trillions in derivatives. TBTF banks are first in line and depositors are thrown under the bus and will be completely wiped out. Any FDIC protection is henceforth nonexistent and, in fact, any FDIC money will probably go to the derivatives holders as well. 

The focus on derivatives is what is scaring the shit out of them... finally! Looks like they have finally figured out that there really is going to be daisy chain of failures leading to economic Doomsday if just one of them goes down.

If the SHTF and B of A goes down you can bet Federal government will also do something and try to make everybody else pay their 'fair share" with a new tax on everybody.

The money machine

The earth is falling into a liquidity trap.  printing money to pay the "elite" interest, but the money is not getting to those who produce something  of real value.  The financialization of everything.  Remind me, what does the financial sector actually produce of real value again?  All I see are financial "products" of mass destruction.  The capital and resource mis-allocation and malinvestment continues...