“Totally
batshit crazy”
--Michael
c Ruppert
IT'S
OFFICIAL: The World's Elites Declare The Global Economic Crisis To Be
Over
27
January, 2013
We've
been saying for a while that the age of crisis was coming to an end.
And now the world's elites have made it official.
The
economic crisis is over.
The
hive mind of Davos has concluded that the financial crisis is done,
finished.
The new worry: a bubble in the credit markets.
There
is no official declaration, or even a formal survey. But the chatter
at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is about the end
of the financial crisis that began in 2008 and dragged on through
last summer’s spike in Spanish and Italian government bond yields.
“There’s a crystallization of thought that the financial crisis
is over,” says Scott Minerd, managing partner and chief investment
officer of Guggenheim Partners, a Santa Monica (Calif.) firm with
about $160 billion under management.
And
here's Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group writing at The Huffington Post:
So
why has Davos decided to look on the bright side? I'd sum it up as
follows:
There's
a sense that the world economy has turned the corner, and after four
years, the financial crisis is finally behind us. Not only are people
much more attuned to the new environment of risks, but also, there is
a sense that the downsides are nearing their limits. Sure, the
eurozone is suffering through record unemployment and a bleak
economic environment--but defaults or a eurozone breakup didn't pan
out. A double-dip recession in the U.S. never materialized. The
threats are still disparate and uncertain, of course, but it feels
like the cataclysmic possibilities are off the table for the time
being.
The
mood at Davos echoes what we're hearing from non-Alpine pundits, like
Mohamed El-Erian and others, who have been talking about how the 'New
Normal' might be coming to an end. Even earlier, economists like Jan
Hatzius at Goldman had been calling for 2013 to represent a big
global economic turning point.
Great
news. (Except if you're in the news business!)
World
Economic Forum Ends With Stark Warning Over Global Economy
Graeme Wearden, The Guardian
Graeme Wearden, The Guardian
27
January, 2013
The
World Economic Forum's annual meeting broke up on Saturday night amid
warnings that attendees were too relaxed and optimistic about the
state of the global economy.
Delegates
left the congress centre in Davos with the words of Axel Weber,
chairman of Swiss bank UBS, ringing in their ears. "In my view
the mood [at Davos] borders on complacency," Weber said. "The
mood has been good, in brackets too good to be true."
Many
speakers at the four-day meeting at the Swiss ski resort predicted
that the worst of the financial crisis was over, as stock markets
continued to rally this week. Weber, though, warned that an
unexpected event could easily puncture the mood, citing political
events such as autumn's general election in Germany.
"My
fear is that 2013 will be a repeat of 2012," explained Weber in
a panel session to debate the global agenda for the next 12 months.
He said that last year also began well, with companies posting solid
financial results, before markets became gripped by fears that Greece
would topple out of the eurozone.
Christine
Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was
also cautious, describing the recovery as "fragile and timid".
Influential
Chinese economist Li Daokui cited the disagreements in the US over
its debts as a key risk to the global economy this year.
"In
the eurozone we have had promises of action … In the US, my
observation is that we've not even had promises," said Li, a
former adviser to the People's Bank of China's Monetary Policy
Committee. He suggested there was a 30% risk that the investor panic
of summer 2011, when stock markets tumbled, would return this year if
solid progress was not made in America.
Last
Wednesday the US House of Representatives passed legislation
suspending the legal limit on government borrowing for four months,
which means the issue could dominate most of the first half of 2013.
Weber,
the former head of the Bundesbank, also took issue with Mark Carney's
assertion earlier in the day that monetary policy was not "maxed
out".
"I
think monetary policy now is too loose", Weber warned, saying
investors were struggling to "price risk" now that central
banks have expanded their balance sheets and pumped huge amounts of
liquidity into the markets.
Frederico
Curado, president of Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer, agreed
that businesses are much more confident about economic prospects.
"Companies are sitting on probably unprecedented amounts of
cash.
Hopefully
this optimism we are seeing will translate into investments."
Curado
also reminded the Forum that the real economy needs further help,
describing unemployment across the world as a "huge, huge issue
for everyone."
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