Numerous dire warnings of economic collapse in July-August

All the pundits seem in broad agreement - an economic collapse coming soon.
Jim Rickards- Amerigeddon
Economic collapse will be 
on August 21, 2017

The Next Financial Crisis Has Already Arrived In Europe, And People Are Starting To Freak Out

EconomicCollapse,

12 June, 2017

Did you know that the sixth largest bank in Spain failed in spectacular fashion just a few days ago?  Many are comparing the sudden implosion of Banco Popular to the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, and EU regulators hastily arranged a sale of the failed bank to Santander in order to avoid a full scale financial panic.  Sadly, most Americans have no idea that a new financial crisis is starting to play out over in Europe, because most Americans only care about what is going on in America.  But we should be paying attention, because the EU is the second largest economy on the entire planet, and the euro is the second most used currency on the entire planet.  The U.S. financial system is already teetering on the brink of disaster, and this new financial crisis in Europe could turn out to be enough to push us over the edge.

If EU regulators had not arranged a “forced sale” of Banco Popular to Santander, we would probably be witnessing panic on a scale that we haven’t seen since 2008 in Europe right about now.  The following comes from the Telegraph…

Spanish banking giant Santander has stepped in to the rescue ailing rival Banco Popular by taking over the failing lender for €1 in a watershed deal masterminded by EU regulators to avoid a damaging collapse.

Santander will tap its shareholders for €7bn in a rights issue to raise the capital needed to shore-up Popular’s finances in a dramatic private sector rescue of Spain’s sixth-largest lender.

It will inflict losses of approximately €3.3bn on bond investors and shareholders but crucially will avoid a taxpayer bailout.

But now that a “too big to fail” bank like Banco Popular has failed, investors are immediately trying to figure out which major Spanish banks may be the next to collapse.  According to Wolf Richter, many have identified Liberbank as an institution that is highly vulnerable…

After its most tumultuous week since the bailout days of 2012, Spain’s banking system is gripped by a climate of fear, uncertainty and distrust. Rather than allaying investor nerves, the shotgun bail-in and sale of Banco Popular to Santander on Tuesday has merely intensified them. For the first time since the Global Financial Crisis, shareholders and subordinate bondholders of a failing Spanish bank were not bailed out by taxpayers; they took risks in order to make a buck, and they bore the consequences. That’s how it should be. But bank investors don’t like not getting bailed out.

Now they’re worrying it could happen again. As Popular’s final days showed, once confidence and trust in a bank vanishes, it’s almost impossible to restore them. The fear has now spread to Spain’s eighth largest lender, Liberbank, a mini-Bankia that was spawned in 2011 from the forced marriage of three failed cajas (savings banks), Cajastur, Caja de Extremadura and Caja Cantabria.

On Thursday, shares of Liberbank dropped by an astounding 20 percent, and that was followed up by another 19 percent decline on Friday.

Spanish authorities responded by banning short sales of Liberbank shares, and that caused a short-term rebound in the stock price.

But we haven’t seen this kind of chaos in European financial markets in a very long time.

Meanwhile, Nick Giambruno is sounding the alarm about a much bigger bubble.  At this moment, more than a trillion dollars worth of Italian government bonds have negative yields…

Over $1 trillion worth of Italian bonds actually have negative yields.

It’s a bizarre and perverse situation.

Lending money to the bankrupt Italian government carries huge risks. So the yields on Italian government bonds should be near record highs, not record lows.

Negative yields could not exist in a free market. They’re only possible in the current “Alice in Wonderland” economy created by central bankers.

You see, the European Central Bank (ECB) has been printing money to buy Italian government bonds hand over fist. Since 2008, the ECB and Italian banks have bought over 88% of Italian government debt, according to a recent study.

The moment that the ECB stops wildly buying Italian bonds, the party will be over and the Italian financial system will crash.  Unfortunately for Italy, the Germans are pressuring the ECB to quit printing so much money, and the Germans usually get their way in these things.

But if the Germans get their way this time, we could be facing a complete and utter nightmare very quickly.  Here is more from Nick Giambruno…

Once the ECB—the only large buyer—steps away, Italian government bonds will crash and rates will soar.

Soon it will be impossible for the Italian government to finance itself.

Italian banks—which are already insolvent—will be decimated. They hold an estimated €235 billion worth of Italian government bonds. So the coming bond crash will pummel their balance sheets.

It’s shaping up to be a lovely train wreck.

And all of this is happening in the context of a global economy that appears to be headed for a major downturn.

For example, the last time that global credit growth showed down this rapidly was during the last financial crisis…

From peak to trough the deceleration in global credit growth is now approaching that during the global financial crisis (-6% of global GDP), even if the dispersion of the decline is much narrower. Currently 55% of the countries in our sample have experienced a -0.3 standard deviation deterioration in their credit impulse (median over 12 months) compared to 77% of countries in Dec ’09 when the median decline was -1.4 stdev.”

Of course the last time global credit growth decelerated this dramatically, global central banks intervened on a scale that was unlike anything that we had ever seen before.

But this time around it is happening at a time when global central banks are very low on ammo…

More importantly, back in 2009, not only China, but the Fed and other central banks unleashed the biggest injection of credit, i.e. liquidity, the world has ever seen resulting in the biggest asset bubble the world has ever seen. And, this time around, the Fed is set to hike for the third time in the past year, even as the ECB and BOJ are forced to soon taper as they run out of eligible bonds to monetize. All this comes at a time when US loan growth is weeks away from turning negative.

As such, what “kickstarts” the next spike in the credit impulse is unclear. What is clear is that if the traditional 3-6 month lag between credit inflection points, i.e. impulse, and economic growth is maintained, the global economy is set for a dramatic collapse some time in the second half.

There are so many experts that are warning about big economic trouble in our immediate future.  I would like to say that all of the experts that are freaking out are wrong, but I can’t do that.

I have not seen an atmosphere like this since 2008 and 2009, and everything points to an acceleration of the crisis as we enter the second half of this year.

Legendary Investor Jim Rogers Warns That The Worst Stock Market Crash In Your Lifetime Is Coming ‘This Year Or Next’

MUST LISTEN Marc Faber Amerigeddon Economic collapse will be on June 21, 2017

Gerald Celente | Globalists Are Going To Collapse World Economy on JULY 2017

Towards financial Armageddon?

Yesterday there was “optimism”; today there is still no agreement. My bet is on a last minute agreement to “kick the can down the road”

Fitch puts US credit rating under review for downgrade

Global credit rating agency Fitch has put the United States’ ‘AAA’ credit rating on “rating watch negative” based on stalled debt ceiling negotiations.

RT,

15 October, 2013

"Although Fitch continues to believe that the debt ceiling will be raised soon, the political brinkmanship and reduced financing flexibility could increase the risk of a US default," Fitch wrote in a release Tuesday afternoon. 

The agency said the US Treasury, though it could still make some obliged payments after October 17, may be exposed to “volatile revenue and expenditure flows” based on the impasse in Washington.

“The US risks being forced to incur widespread delays of payments to suppliers and employees, as well as social security payments to citizens - all of which would damage the perception of US sovereign creditworthiness and the economy,” Fitch wrote.

Halted talks on raising the debt ceiling risk "undermining confidence in the role of the US dollar as the preeminent global reserve currency, by casting doubt over the full faith and credit of the US,” Fitch went on. “This ‘faith’ is a key reason why the US 'AAA' rating can tolerate a substantially higher level of public debt than other 'AAA' sovereigns.” 

"The announcement reflects the urgency with which Congress should act to remove the threat of default hanging over the economy," a US Treasury spokesperson said. 

In August 2011, credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded the US credit rating from ‘AAA’(outstanding) to ‘AA+’ (excellent) amid a similar stalemate in Washington on raising the debt ceiling. 

Fitch added that the regularity of the US debt-ceiling fights contributes to Tuesday’s move.

“The repeated brinkmanship over raising the debt ceiling also dents confidence in the effectiveness of the US government and political institutions, and in the coherence and credibility of economic policy. It will also have some detrimental effect on the US economy,” Fitch wrote. 

House Republicans nixed a vote scheduled for Tuesday evening on a plan that would have sought to reopen government agencies and raise the debt ceiling before the US defaults on October 17. 

Sources told Politico the GOP did not have a sufficient number of votes to pass the legislation. 

The cancelled vote follows an earlier House GOP proposal Tuesday that was rejected by the White House. 

President Barack Obama said in a Tuesday interview that he expects a deal on the debt to happen, despite the tight deadline.

"Let's not do a lot of posturing, let's not try to save face, let's not worry about politics,” he told WABC in a note to fellow lawmakers. 

Plan B: Central banks getting ready for financial Armageddon

If the US debt-ceiling debate goes past the eleventh hour, and the default of the world’s largest economy becomes a reality, leading central banks around the world are gearing up to minimize losses and keep the world economy functioning.

 

RT,

15 October, 2013

If US lawmakers don’t reach a budget consensus and raise the debt ceiling by Thursday October 17, the US will become the first Western power to default since Nazi Germany in 1933, and will send markets into uncharted territory.

The rest of the world is bracing itself for what would happen if the bill is rejected, and the US inches closer to defaulting on its debts, which are largely foreign- held in the form of US Treasury Bonds.

Central banks have begun preparing for the worst-case scenario if US does fault, which would result in a serious devaluation of Treasury bonds, delayed payments, and a more large-scale version of the current government shutdown.

“Because in the past it’s always been sorted out is absolutely not a reason to fail to do the contingency planning,” Jon Cunliffe, who will become the Bank of England’s deputy governor for financial stability in November, told UK lawmakers.

“I would expect the Bank of England to be planning for it [US default]. I’d expect private-sector actors to be doing that, and in other countries as well,” said Cunliffe, who acknowledged a default as “the main risk to the [global] financial system”.

The European Central Bank and the People’s Bank of China (PBC) have struck a deal that moves both banks farther from the dollar orbit. The two banks agreed to ‘swap’ $56 billion worth of yuan for $60.8 billion worth of euros.

Many central banks have reserves in the form of Sovereign Wealth Funds, which are also at risk if the US defaults, as many of the assets are held in dollars. These investment vehicles could be crippled by a default. China’s is estimated at more than $1.3 trillion - the world’s largest.

A historic shift

Neil Mackinnon, a former UK Treasury official, told RT the US default tango marks a shift in the global economic paradigm, from West to East.

If the US doesn’t act soon, “the dollar will decline and its importance will move to a multi-polar currency system and other currencies will take on board more importance,” said Mackinnon.

Over the weekend, economic leaders from around the world met in Washington DC at the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting. The fund’s managing director, Christine LaGarde, issued a harsh warning the global financial system could enter a recession if the US misses its debt deadline.

The US Senate said they will announce a deal to end the shutdown and extend the debt ceiling on Tuesday, which will pass through to the House, where it will face Obama’s hard-nosed Republican opponents who want to cut funding of the Affordable Care Act.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said Tuesday has the potential to be a “bright day” and bring calm back to the global markets. 

Jim Rogers: US is exceptional...it's largest debt nation in the world!

There may be progress in US over the government shutdown and debt ceiling, but it's not all good. The deal being talked about now wouldn't resolve the crisis - but rather kick the can down the road setting the scene for another budget showdown early next year. For more on this RT talks to investor Jim Rogers, author of 'Street Smarts - Adventures on the Road and in the Markets'.

Jim Rogers fears the worst for Japan

Jim Rogers: 'When We Look Back, Mr. Abe Will Have Ruined Japan'

Business Insider,

13 June, 2013

Jim Rogers fears the worst for Japan.

In an interview with Fusion MarketSite, the emerging markets and commodities guru says there is no way Japanese PM Shinzo Abe's growth policies can possibly succeed — there are already many trends working against him, and his plan will only make things worse.

Here's the exchange:

Fusion: How does it end in Japan – in tears ?

Rogers: Of course it does. Japan has a very serious problem. When we look back, Mr. Abe will have ruined Japan. Huge debt levels, horrible demographics, they won’t let in foreigners, the population is declining. Mr. Abe comes along and says he’ll ruin the currency. It is a disaster in the long term, and not guaranteed to work in the short term, either.

Rogers went on to say he remains bullish on China, and that the only thing that can stop it is a resource crisis — specifically, with its water supplies:

The only way the China story runs into big problems is if they run out of water. China has a major water problem. They are working hard to solve it. I believe they will solve it. If you want to make a lot of money find companies that are working to fix that problem. As for their stock market, it’s getting closer to a buy. I bought a few shares on Friday. Their market is getting to the point it should be bought.

Rogers said he believes the U.S. shale revolution is overhyped:

Regarding natural gas, the fundamentals on the ground are not nearly as good as the hype. The number of rigs on the ground has gone down 75% the last couple of years, as the wells are very short-lived, and it takes an enormous amount of money to keep them up. A number of companies have had to lower estimates of their reserves. As for oil shale, typical wells deplete at 38 percent the first year. Thus you need a lot of drilling, money, and a high price to keep up production rates.  All you have to do is go out in the oil patch. I believe the investment world will be disappointed with the notion that supply is so great that oil will collapse.

Finally, on gold, Rogers is convinced recent declines are merely a hiccup:

It’s gone up 12 years in a row. I don’t know of any asset that goes up 12 years in a row. So just from a technical point of view, maybe it needs to go down some more. But from a fundamental point of view it will be a buy. There are some short-term factors hurting gold. The Indians are trying to restrict the purchase of gold, as it’s the source (along with oil) of their trade deficit. I have not sold my gold and plan to buy more if it keeps dropping. And yes, I did call for a correction a while back, and sometimes I do get it right !

Read the full interview at Fusion MarketSite >