The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. – Benjamin Franklin
Source: YouTube
Source: YouTube
Gerald Celente, and analyst renowned for accuracy on forecasting trends, explains why the impending economic collapse, next escalating to a serious retail and commercial real estate collapse, will be greater than the Great Depression of 1929; speaking on the Lew Rockwell Show.
Remember?!
Fortis Bank Predicts US Financial Market Meltdown Within Weeks (28 Jun 08)
Source: Bye bye dollar, bye bye Treasuries…
Deflation? “Sure!” Just wait and see.
– The Neo-Alchemy of the Federal Reserve by Ron Paul
– Interview: Peter Schiff still grim on future
– Interview with Peter Schiff (12/13/08)
This is ‘the worst financial crisis‘ because every institution is doing its best to make it worse.
Bank of Spain governor Miguel Fernandez Ordonez
MADRID (AFP) – The governor of the Bank of Spain on Sunday issued a bleak assessment of the economic crisis, warning that the world faced a “total” financial meltdown unseen since the Great Depression.
“The lack of confidence is total,” Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez said in an interview with Spain’s El Pais daily.
“The inter-bank (lending) market is not functioning and this is generating vicious cycles: consumers are not consuming, businessmen are not taking on workers, investors are not investing and the banks are not lending.
“There is an almost total paralysis from which no-one is escaping,” he said, adding that any recovery — pencilled in by optimists for the end of 2009 and the start of 2010 — could be delayed if confidence is not restored.
Ordonez recognised that falling oil prices and lower taxes could kick-start a faster-than-anticipated recovery, but warned that a deepening cycle of falling consumer demand, rising unemployment and an ongoing lending squeeze could not be ruled out.
“This is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression” of 1929, he added.
Read moreWorld faces “total” financial meltdown: Bank of Spain chief
Added: December 18, 2008
Source: YouTube
Creating money out of thin air creates inflation. Even Bernanke admitted – questioned by Ron Paul – that inflation is a tax. So the government and the banksters want to tax you without you knowing it. They just want to keep the system afloat until ‘they are ready’ to let it fail. They are about to create the worst depression ever.
___________________________________________________________________________
Putting more money into the system – or ‘quantitative easing’ – is a move that may be adopted by central banks across the world
KEEP up at the back. The new big thing to save the world economy is “quantitative easing”. Not an upmarket euphemism for a massage, but the latest and most desperate measure yet by central banks to stop a severe recession turning into depression. And it may soon be adopted in the UK.
Quantitative easing is the elegant, sanitised term for the process by which a central bank fends off the threat of deflation by effectively printing new money, or increasing its supply.
A simple model would work like this: the government issues bonds and sells them, directly or otherwise, to the central bank. The bank creates new money for this purpose and pays the government for those bonds. The money is then used by the government to stimulate the economy through public works and infrastructure projects.
Magic new money: have we really walked into this Last Chance Saloon? Yes, we have.
In an extraordinary statement on Tuesday evening, Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, announced he was cutting the Federal Funds rate, the bank’s key interest rate tool, to a record low of between zero and 0.25 per cent. That’s zero, as in nothing. Not even in the Great Depression were interest rates in the United States brought so low.
Related articles:
– Rev up the helicopter
– Why such drastic action? The Fed is utterly petrified
– Fed Cuts Rate to as Low as Zero, Shifts Policy Focus
However, it was the accompanying statement that let the move to “quantitative easing” out of the bag. He said the Fed “will employ all available tools” and would buy “large quantities of agency debt and mortgage-backed securities to provide support to the mortgage and housing markets”. (“Agency debt” is a bond, issued by a US government-sponsored agency, such as the Federal National Mortgage Association, or Fannie Mae.)
He also let fall that the Fed would consider buying “longer term Treasury securities” – the government’s own debt. This would enable the Fed to bring down the long-term cost of money, thus bringing down US mortgage rates, to put more money into circulation and, not least, to bail out the government by soaking up some of its exploding deficit.
Read moreNew economic policy: If you haven’t got enough of this stuff, just print some more
A future out of control, bankrupt financial institutions trying to hold on, limitation on credit severely limits ability of the economy to start up again, debt totally embraces our lives, handouts a state secret, soon cash infusions wont work for banks anymore, banks hold too much toxic garbage to even know if they are solvent. We are now 17 months into a credit crisis that continues to expose the corruption and incompetence of government, banking, Wall Street and transnational corporations. The situation has not stabilized and it won’t anytime soon. All we see are sweetheart deals for elitist corporations for which American taxpayers will pay for years to come. The future of our nation is totally out of control. For the last eight years our economy has been running on something for nothing, lies and deceit. The result will be hyperinflation and then the Second Great Depression.
Read moreHyperinflation and then The Second Great Depression
“Tens of millions of people unemployed, inflation spiraling out of control, the government instituting price controls that result in shortages and blackouts and long lines for things. I think things are going to get very bad.”
“From an investment point of view, investors need to stay clear, because they need to realize that it’s not just U.S. stocks and real estate that are going to lose value, but U.S. bonds. This is the last bubble yet to burst. I think we’re going to see a collapse of the bond market sometime during Obama’s first term, and interest rates are going to spiral out of control, and the dollar is going to just be destroyed.”
____________________________________________________________________________
People aren’t laughing any more at the way-out-there predictions of Peter Schiff, whose long-standing pessimism about the economy and stock market has been largely borne out.
Schiff heads Euro Pacific Capital, a brokerage in Darien, Conn. with more than $1 billion in assets under management. He has silenced critics because he predicted the collapse of the housing market, the subprime crisis and the soaring of oil prices in his market commentaries before they came to pass.
A YouTube video called “Peter Schiff Was Right” shows him being repeatedly mocked when he went on TV stock shows to make those ultimately correct calls in 2006 and 2007, including forecasting a recession 2 1/2 years ago.
Now, in the midst of what’s already the biggest financial crisis in decades, the prominent purveyor of gloom and doom still sees far tougher times ahead – including a depression and a bear market he thinks will last another five years or more.
GROUP psychology involving Buddhist meditation can be as effective at combating depression as medication, a study published today in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology has found.
Fifteen months after an eight-week trial, 47 per cent of people with depression who under-went therapy suffered a relapse, compared with 60 per cent of those taking antidepressants.
Published Date: 01 December 2008
Source: Scotsman
WASHINGTON — Few prominent economists will say it, but to me it looks and feels like we are in another Great Depression or a reasonable facsimile.
The current meltdown is dubbed a “financial crisis.” But a rose by any other name would still inflict the same hardship and suffering on most people and businesses.
Clearly, the lessons have not been learned from the Herbert Hoover era. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, a columnist for The New York Times, says the current banking crisis is “functionally similar to that of the Great Depression.”
“Many of the symptoms” are the same, including the impotence of monetary policy — like cuts in interest rates — that has not halted the economic downturn.
When I first saw this article 2 days ago I decided not to publish it, because this coming from Citigroup may rather be understood as a very good advice not to buy gold.
__________________________________________________________________________
Gold is poised for a dramatic surge and could blast through $2,000 an ounce by the end of next year as central banks flood the world’s monetary system with liquidity, according to an internal client note from the US bank Citigroup.
An employee of Tanaka Kikinzoku Jewelry K.K. displays a gold bar at the company’s store in Tokyo Photo: Reuters
The bank said the damage caused by the financial excesses of the last quarter century was forcing the world’s authorities to take steps that had never been tried before.
This gamble was likely to end in one of two extreme ways: with either a resurgence of inflation; or a downward spiral into depression, civil disorder, and possibly wars. Both outcomes will cause a rush for gold.
“They are throwing the kitchen sink at this,” said Tom Fitzpatrick, the bank’s chief technical strategist.
“The world is not going back to normal after the magnitude of what they have done. When the dust settles this will either work, and the money they have pushed into the system will feed though into an inflation shock.
Read moreCitigroup says gold could rise above $2,000 next year as world unravels
Chairman of Soros Fund Managment George Soros speaks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technolog, October 28, 2008.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management, testified at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Thursday. Highlights:
* Said “a deep recession is now inevitable and the possibility of a depression cannot be ruled out.”
* Said hedge funds were an integral part of the financial market bubble which now has burst.
* Said hedge funds will be “decimated” by the current financial crisis and forced to shrink their portfolios by 50-75 percent.
Read moreGeorge Soros says deep recession inevitable, depression possible
Ben and Hank have both told you that the critical issue for the economy is for “lending to resume”, stating that it has dramatically contracted.
If this was the truth, then Ben and Hank would have come to you for $700 billion in the TARP, but instead of TARPing the money, they would have asked for permission to use it to capitalize 10 new banks which would be immediately IPO’d off to the public with the stake being in the form of some kind of super-senior debt that held a coupon high enough to encourage immediate (or nearly-so) replacement with private capital.
This would have resulted in an aggregate of seven trillion worth of new lending capacity in the economy, an amount that, incidentally, would allow the full replacement of Fannie and Freddie as holders of housing debt with about $2 trillion left over for credit cards, auto and business loans.
That would have immediately solved the “credit freeze” problem.
So why wasn’t this proposed?
This is the reason:
In short, it wouldn’t have done anything because the economy only grows at a rate of about 20 cents for every dollar of debt taken on. That is, it takes five dollars of debt to generate one new dollar of GDP.
The bad news is that once you reach the “$1 for $1” level you are no longer able to finance growth with debt, and it becomes inevitable that you will begin to finance debt with debt.
That, of course generates no GDP at all but precipitously tightens the spiral.
We crossed that Rubicon roughly around 1968, and you have had this fact concealed from you.
Congress, please listen:
The Truth is that we now require about $5 of debt to generate $1 of GDP.
Read moreCongress: What Bernanke and Hank Aren’t Telling You
Added: October 25, 2008
Source: YouTube
Emmanuel Roman, of GLG Partners, said 25pc-30pc of the world’s 8,000 hedge funds would disappear “in a Darwinian process”, either going bust or deciding meagre profits are not worth their efforts.
“This will go down in the history books as one of the greatest fiascos of banking in 100 years,” said Mr Roman, who with Noam Gottesman, co-runs GLG, a former division of Lehman Brothers Holdings with assets of $24bn (£14.8bn). “There need to be some scapegoats, and the regulators are going to go hunt people. That will be good in the long run.”
His views were echoed by Professor Nouriel Roubini, a former US Treasury and presidential adviser known for his accurate prediction of financial crises, who estimated that up to 500 hedge funds would fail within months.
Both men were speaking at the same hedge fund conference in London yesterday, and Prof Roubini said he would not be surprised if the US and other countries soon had to close their stock markets for more than a week to halt descent into “sheer panic”.
The economist warned that the world is heading for a protracted recession that will end the US’s financial dominance.
“It’s the beginning of the decline of the US financial empire. The Great Depression ended in a massive war. I hope that’s not going to happen but it’s pretty ugly now,” Prof Roubini said.
Read moreGLG chief Emmanuel Roman warns thousands of hedge funds on brink of failure
Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve will provide up to $540 billion in loans to help relieve pressure on money-market mutual funds beset by redemptions.
“Short-term debt markets have been under considerable strain in recent weeks” as it got tougher for funds to meet withdrawal requests, the Fed said today in a statement in Washington. A Fed official said that about $500 billion has flowed since August out of prime money-market funds, which with other money-market mutual funds control $3.45 trillion.
The initiative is the third government effort to aid the funds, which usually provide a key source of financing for banks and companies. The exodus of investors, sparked by losses following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., contributed to the freezing of credit that threatens to tip the economy into a prolonged recession.
“The problem was much worse than we thought,” Jim Bianco, president of Chicago-based Bianco Research LLC, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. Policy makers are trying to prevent “Great Depression II” by stemming the financial industry’s contraction, he said.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. will run five special units that will buy up to $600 billion of certificates of deposit, bank notes and commercial paper with a remaining maturity of 90 days or less. The Fed will provide up to $540 billion, with the remaining $60 billion coming from commercial paper issued by the five units to the money-market funds selling their assets, central bank officials told reporters on a conference call.
Read moreFed to Provide Up to $540 Billion to Aid Money Funds
Ron Paul, whose libertarian-leaning candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination spurred millions of supporters, says the federal government could do much to repair the economy short of regulating.
While running for the Republican presidential nomination, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas frequently sounded the alarm regarding the nation’s fiscal health. Years ahead of the current economic crisis, Paul was questioning the nation’s debt level, now an acutely pressing issue amid all the recent stock market volatility.
With the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve rapidly moving toward more government intervention in the marketplace while trying to stabilize the nation’s banks and shore up its financial institutions, Paul has argued for a hands-off approach. He opposed both versions of the financial rescue plan that came before the House – the first one, which was rejected, and the second, which was passed and signed into law.
Politico’s David Mark interviewed the 10-term congressman, who has still not endorsed Republican John McCain for president. Here are some excerpts.
Q: With the stock market still in flux and the risk of massive financial failures growing, what’s the worst-case economic scenario you envision over the next couple of years?
A: The worst part could be that this would linger for a decade or more. In fact, a very serious recession or depression is on schedule. You cannot avoid it. Eventually it has to come, but it doesn’t have to end badly. We could take our lumps, save money, pay our bills, restore liberty, and in a year we could have the most booming economy ever. But it would take a complete change in attitude.
If we continue to believe it’s freedom, capitalism and private markets that are the problems, we’re in for very bad times.
Worst slump since Great Depression: Bud Fields and his family in their home during the Great Depression in Alabama, 1935. Photo: Corbis
The warning underlines the fact that policymakers have failed to prevent the financial crisis from turning into a full-blown economic slump. It comes as world leaders agreed to hold a summit in New York billed as the “Bretton Woods meeting for the 21st century”.
In its major assessment of the global economy’s health, Deutsche Bank also warned that Britain is even more vulnerable than the US or the euro area, as it predicted that the powerhouses of India and China would fail to support the wider global economy through the downturn.
The banks’ economists Thomas Mayer and Peter Hooper said: “We now expect a major recession for the world economy over the year ahead, with growth in the industrial countries falling to its lowest level since the Great Depression and global growth falling to 1.2pc, its lowest level since the severe downturn of the early 1980s.”
According to the International Monetary Fund, global growth of anything less than 3pc constitutes a world recession. The warning was echoed by Richard Berner of Morgan Stanley, who said: “A global recession is now under way, and risks are still pointed to the downside for commodity prices and earnings.”
Added: Oct. 13, 2008
Source: YouTube
“There is a global meltdown coming. It is a global depression. And one world currency and one world financial system is the endgame… China said last week they want one global currency. France said yesterday they want one world order – a ‘New World Order’ at the end of this event.”
Added: Oct. 09, 2008
Source: YouTube
Stock markets across the world are in a state of hysteria. The tidal wave of sell-offs, which began when Henry Paulson announced the Bush administration’s $700 billion bailout plan for the sinking banking system, has swelled into a global tsunami racing round the globe.
Shares fell sharply across Europe and Asia for the fifth straight day following a 679 drop on the Dow Jones. Nearly $900 billion was wiped off the value of U.S. equities in just one trading day. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, the “fear index”, soared to a record 64.
Credit markets remain frozen. Libor, the London interbank offered rate, nudged up slightly on Thursday night, signaling even greater resistance to lending between the banks. Until there is relief in the credit markets, stocks will continue to slide. But trust has vanished. The 50 basis points rate cut that was coordinated with foreign central banks has had no effect. The market is being driven by fear and pessimism.
Dick Fuld, former Lehman Brothers’ chief executive Photo: AP
The dismemberment of Dick Fuld, Lehman Brothers’ former chief executive, before a Congressional committee on Monday was a compelling, albeit brutal, event.
His televised humiliation was orchestrated by a veteran Democrat, Henry Waxman, whose simple question about Fuld’s alleged $480m of earnings – Is that fair? – hit the banker like a haymaker, rendering him speechless.
As the cameras focused on Fuld’s haunted stare, there was a sense of action replay. Hadn’t we seen this freak show, or at least something remarkably like it, long before Lehman went under – a display of furious inquisitors wiping the floor with Wall Street’s loftiest reputations?
Yes, history was repeating itself: “As the ghosts of numerous tyrants, from Julius Caesar to Benito Mussolini will testify, people are very hard on those who, having had power, lose it or are destroyed. Then anger at past arrogance is joined with contempt for present weakness.
“The victim or his corpse is made to suffer all available indignities. Such was the fate of the bankers. They were fair game for Congressional committees, courts, the press and comedians.”
These are the observations of economist J K Galbraith in The Great Crash, 1929. First published in 1954, his analysis of the greed and self-delusion that led to the unravelling of America’s stock market and the subsequent Depression is undimmed by time.
Replace 1929 with 2008 and the story, I’m afraid, is eerily familiar: a speculative orgy, crescendo, climax and crash. As this plays out, important people – business and political leaders – rely on “the power of incantation” to keep the rest of us calm. Their efforts are doomed to fail.
Read moreRemember 1929 – what seemed to be the end was only the beginning