Tag Archives: Eurozone

Global Systemic Crisis/October 2012 -The Global Economy Sucked Into A Black Hole And World Geopolitics Heated To White-Hot

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GEAB | September 16 2012 | Thanks, Kevin

As LEAP/E2020 anticipated since the end of 2011, the end of summer 2012 marks the beginning of the revival for Euroland with the emergence of a positive dynamic fed by two lasting phenomena: first, the progressive operational installation of the instruments bitterly discussed and decided upon during the last 18 months and, secondly, the visionary spark brought by the political changes of the last six months which have put Euroland’s medium to long term future back in the middle of the decision-making process. The Euro’s progress these past weeks offers a perfect illustration of the phenomenon (1). That being said, Europe will be in recession for the next six to twelve months. It just goes to show that the only good news that we announced in the June 2012 GEAB issue is far from being miraculous.

In a certain sense, it’s even the contrary, since henceforth it’s no longer possible to hide the global economy’s tragic state behind the pretext of the “Euro or Greek crisis”. The more Euroland advances constructively, the more the “Potemkinien” (2) character of the US, Chinese, Japanese and Brazilian… economies’ « health » will show itself. The tree will no longer hide the forest, namely that all the major global economies are entering recession or slowing growth simultaneously, leading the socio-economic and financial world into a black hole.

At the same time summer 2012 will have marked a major acceleration in world geopolitical dislocation with a Syrian conflict which becomes more dangerous for the Middle East and the world day by day (3), Israeli-Iranian tension which is ready to explode at any time, and widespread testing of declining US power – from the China Sea to Latin America via the whole Muslim world. The strategic-military world is heated white-hot as the massive resumption of arms sales worldwide illustrates for that matter, with the United States supplying 85% of the total (4).

Global arms sales and principal exporters’ share (2010-2011) - Source: New York Times, 08/2012

Global arms sales and principal exporters’ share (2010-2011) – Source: New York Times, 08/2012

For these reasons, LEAP/E2020 maintains its June 2012 Red Alert and estimates that, by the end of October 2012, the global economy will be sucked into a black hole against a backdrop of world geopolitics heated white-hot. Suffice it to say that the coming weeks will, according to our team, carry the planet away in a hurricane of unprecedented crises and conflicts.

So, in this GEAB issue, LEAP/E2020 sets out the list of the seven key factors of this double shock without modern historical equivalent:

In addition, this GEAB issue contains an anticipation of the cumulative impact of the crisis and the Internet on European retail trade, predicting a loss of 2.5 million jobs by 2015.

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Mike Adams ~ Germany’s Constitutional Court Decision Either Means A Rapid Eurozone Financial Collapse, Or Inevitable Hyperinflation

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Natural News | September 12 2012

Natural News ~ The financial collapse of the Eurozone may be upon us. This Wednesday, September 12, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany must decide whether it is legal for Germany to participate in the financial bailouts of other nations in the Eurozone.

The court has been inundated with tens of thousands of petitions (not just petition signers, but tens of thousands of individual petitions) demanding the court say NO to the bailouts and stop draining Germany’s economy to rescue the failed debt spending of other nations.

Here’s why this matters:

A NO decision means a rapid financial collapse of the Eurozone

If Germany votes NO, then Germany stops bailing out Greece, Spain and other nations on the brink of financial disaster. Sometime in the coming days, weeks or, in the best case, a few months, European nations start collapsing, complete with bank holidays, riots in the streets and almost certainly martial law.

This collapse will, at first, cause a flight of capital to the USA, making the U.S. look stronger in the short term, but given how many U.S. banks are invested in European financial instruments (derivatives), the U.S. banking collapse won’t be far behind.

A YES decision means runaway hyperinflation across the Eurozone

If the German court votes YES to the continued financial bailouts, then Germany must crank up the printing presses and start creating money at such a rapid pace that hyperinflation becomes almost inevitable. Literally trillions of Euros would have to be (electronically) printed in Germany, then transferred off to other countries like Italy, Spain and Greece, where banksters and governments have spent themselves beyond the point of collapse and are in desperate need of bailouts.

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Ethan A. Huff ~ Euro Collapse Imminent, Experts Believe

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Natural News | August 30 2012

Natural News ~ The future does not look very promising for the euro, the flailing currency of the European Union (EU). Speculation among many bankers, company executives, investors, government officials, and others that the euro is about to completely unravel are actually helping to fuel the currency’s decline, say some, a process that many others, including euro architect Otmar Issing, have long believed was inevitable anyway.

The ongoing debt crisis in the “Eurozone,” or the bloc of European countries that are part of the EU, is only continuing to worsen, and EU officials have been unable to come up with a viable policy solution to jump start the EU economy. Meanwhile, the local economies of Greece, Italy, and Spain are in rapid decline with no end in sight, and countries like Germany and Finland that have had to continually prop them are up are growing weary of having to keep the ship afloat, so to speak.

Many European banks have stopped lending across their own countries’ borders, investors have pulled their assets out of European markets, and the Constitutional Court of Germany, one of the key countries holding the EU together, will soon determine whether or not its continued bailout efforts for the worst performing countries in the EU are even legal in the first place. All the signs, in other words, are pointing to an eventual euro collapse.

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Alasdair Macleod ~ September 12th German Court Decision = Collapse of the Euro Zone? [Audio]

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SGTbull07 | August 23 2012

Part 1 of 2: In this interview Alasdair & I discuss the critical German Constitutional Court decision due on September 12th which may mark the END of Germany’s ability to fund the endless Euro Zone bailouts, which now total more than $2 TRILLION for Germany alone! If Germany bails on the bailouts… the EuroZone will fall and all hell will break loose globally.

In Part 2 Alasdair & I discuss the developing shortage of physical gold and silver, and the total denial of the average American that there is any problem whatsoever. Even talking about these issues with the average sheeple makes the informed among us “party poopers”, or worse, “gloom & doomers”.

Alasdair Macleod is the head of research at GoldMoney.com and a precious metals pundit of the highest order.

Listen to Part 2 here

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Ethan A. Huff ~ Finland Preparing For ‘Full-Blown Currency Crisis’ And Collapse Of Eurozone

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Natural News | August 21 2012

Erkki Tuomioja

Natural News ~ In a shocking admission that shows just how serious the ongoing “Eurozone” crisis truly is, a Finnish official has come forward with information about how his country, which is among the strongest in the European Union (EU), plans to deal with a potential break-up of the euro. Erkki Tuomioja, Finland’s Foreign Minister, openly admits that his country is preparing for an eventual collapse of the Eurozone, and has contingency plans in place that may include reverting from the euro back to the country’s former currency.

Though Finland is relatively strong compared to many other EU member countries, it is weaker than its non-EU Scandinavian neighbors, which include Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Each of these countries still has its own unique currency, and all of them are growing and thriving much faster than Finland, which is bound to a currency and economic union that is constantly being dragged down by Greece, Spain, and other economically-failing countries.

European socialist system failing as ‘poor’ countries continue to drag down ‘rich’ countries

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Wolf Richter ~ Even Counterfeiters Are Giving Up On The Euro

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Testosterone Pit | July 19 2012 | Thanks, Thomas

My first experience with a physical euro was mid-December 2001 when I travelled to Europe for preliminary discussions with potential partners for the startup I ended up launching later that year. First stop: Germany. Bank showcases were filled with euro feel-good agitprop. Euro bills and coins would enter circulation on January 1, and this was part of the long-running campaign to persuade Germans to surrender their Deutsche marks. People had some apprehensions, and some wanted to retain the D-Mark, but my business contacts were gleeful: the euro would become the dominant reserve currency in the world; oil would be priced in it.

To celebrate this unique moment in history, I entered a Deutsche Bank branch and bought several euro Starter Packs, as they were called in good German. The clear plastic pouches cost DM 20 and contained all denominations of euro coins. I handed them out as souvenirs when I came home. Here is the one I kept:

The following year, the euro was in every Eurozone wallet. OK, people were bitching. Things had gotten more expensive. Little but highly visible things. Merchants rounded up. An espresso in Germany might have cost DM 3 but then sold for €2, instead of €1.50 as it should have.

By then, I’d moved to Belgium—without feel for what things had cost beforehand. What I did notice was how easy, cheap, and fast transactions were with Eurozone countries. I was too busy building a company to worry about birth defects and fatal flaws of the monetary union that covers not only the 330 million people in the Eurozone, but another 150 million people in Africa whose currencies are pegged to it, and maybe 20 million people in other countries with currency pegs. And for nostalgic reasons, I would like the euro to survive.

But that may be wishful thinking. Every day brings new developments that raise my doubts further: turns out, even counterfeiters have lost confidence in the euro.

In fact, the euro counterfeiting bubble has collapsed. The ECB, in its biannual reports on euro note counterfeiting, documented the bubble and its demise, which by the way, parallels in timing, if not in magnitude, other bubbles, including the Wine Bubble [read..... Ouch! The Wine Bubble Blows Up].

After a fairly steady period through 2006, euro counterfeiting jumped 70% to its peak in the second quarter of 2009. Alas, following on the heels of the financial crisis, the Eurozone debt crisis began to gnaw on periphery countries, and counterfeiters lost confidence along with the rest of the financial markets. By the first half of 2012, counterfeiting had crashed 44%. And not much but thin Alpine air appears to be underneath it.

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Paul Taylor ~ Analysis: Euro Zone Fragmenting Faster Than EU Can Act

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Reuters | July 9 2012 | Thanks, Thomas

(Reuters) – Signs are growing that Europe’s economic and monetary union may be fragmenting faster than policymakers can repair it.

Euro zone leaders agreed in principle on June 29 to establish a joint banking supervisor for the 17-nation single currency area, based on the European Central Bank, although most of the crucial details remain to be worked out.

The proposal was a tentative first step towards a European banking union that could eventually feature a joint deposit guarantee and a bank resolution fund, to prevent bank runs or collapses sending shock waves around the continent.

The leaders agreed that the euro zone’s permanent bailout fund, the 500 billion euro ($620 billion) European Stability Mechanism, would be able to inject capital directly into banks on strict conditions once the joint supervisor is established.

But the rush to put first elements of such a system in place by next year may come too late.

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Greg Hunter ~ Banks Are Now In Control Of Eurozone

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USA Watchdog | July 3 2012

Anselm Rothschild famously said, “Give me the power to issue a nation’s money; then I do not care who makes the law.” It looks like the bankers are taking control of the Eurozone with their latest bailout plan to “inject” printed money directly into the banks. I guess this is one of the main reasons why Howard Buffett (Warren’s dad) said this decades ago: “The gold standard acted as a silent watchdog to prevent ‘unlimited public spending.Our finances will never be brought in order until Congress is compelled to do so. Making our money redeemable in gold will create this compulsion.” ” When you recall that one of the first moves by Lenin, Mussolini and Hitler was to outlaw individual ownership of gold, you begin to sense that there may be some connection between money, redeemable in gold, and the rare prize known as human liberty. Also, when you find that Lenin declared and demonstrated that a sure way to overturn the existing social order and bring about communism was by printing press paper money, then again you are impressed with the possibility of a relationship between a gold-backed money and human freedom.” REP. HOWARD BUFFETT

Ellen Brown of Webofdebt.com has written an excellent post on what is really taking place in the ongoing banking bailout of the Eurozone. Get this, the bankers over there have given themselves immunity from just about every law that can be broken. This is outrageous!! She is today’s guest writer on USAWatchdog.com. As usual, Brown uses excellent sourcing to back up what she says. Please enjoy– Greg Hunter

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Government by the Banks, for the Banks: The ESM Coup D’Etat in Europe
Ellen Brown (Guest writer, USAWatchdog)

On Friday, June 29th, German Chancellor Angela Merkel acquiesced to changes to a permanent Eurozone bailout fund—“before the ink was dry,” as critics complained. Besides easing the conditions under which bailouts would be given, the concessions included an agreement that funds intended for indebted governments could be funneled directly to stressed banks.

According to Gavin Hewitt, Europe editor for BBC News, the concessions mean that:

[T]he eurozone’s bailout fund (backed by taxpayers’ money) will be taking a stake in failed banks.

Risk has been increased. German taxpayers have increased their liabilities. In future a bank crash will no longer fall on the shoulders of national treasuries but on the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), a fund to which Germany contributes the most.

In the short term, these measures will ease pressure in the markets. However there is currently only 500bn euros assigned to the ESM. That may get swallowed up quickly and the markets may demand more. It is still unclear just how deep the holes in the eurozone’s banks are.

The ESM is now a permanent bailout fund for private banks, a sort of permanent “welfare for the rich.” There is no ceiling set on the obligations to be underwritten by the taxpayers, no room to negotiate, and no recourse in court. Its daunting provisions were summarized in a December 2011 youtube video originally posted in German, titled “The shocking truth of the pending EU collapse!”:

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Simon Johnson ~ U.S. Banks Aren’t Nearly Ready For Coming European Crisis (Thanks, Thomas)

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Bloomberg | June 24 2012

Simon Johnson s a professor of entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.

The euro area faces a major economic crisis, most likely a series of rolling, country-specific problems involving some combination of failing banks and sovereigns that can’t pay their debts in full.

This will culminate in systemwide stress, emergency liquidity loans from the European Central Bank and politicians from all the countries involved increasingly at one another’s throats.

Even the optimists now say openly that Europe will only solve its problems when the alternatives look sufficiently bleak and time has run out. Less optimistic people increasingly think that the euro area will break up because all the proposed solutions are pie-in-the-sky. If the latter view is right — or even if concern about dissolution grows in coming months — markets, investors, regulators and governments need to worry not just about interest-rate risk and credit risk, but also dissolution risk.

What’s more, they also need to worry a great deal about what the repricing of risk will do to the world’s thinly capitalized and highly leveraged megabanks. Officials, unfortunately, appear not to have thought about this at all; the Group of 20 meeting and communique last week exuded complacency and neglect.

Very few people seem to have gotten their heads around dissolution risk. Here’s what it means: If you have a contract that requires you to be paid in euros and the euro no longer exists, what you will receive is unclear.

No Euro

As a warm-up, consider first a simple contract. Let’s say you have lent 1 million euros to a German bank, payable three months from now. If the euro suddenly ceases to exist and all countries revert to their original currencies, then you would probably receive payment in deutsche marks. You might be fine with this — and congratulate yourself on not lending to an Italian bank, which is now paying off in lira.

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Greg Hunter ~ Weekly News Wrap Up June 29 2012

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USA Watchdog | June 22 2012

The Affordable Care Act, or Obama Care, has been upheld by the Supreme Court.  As I was watching the mainstream media on television yesterday, the left appeared absolutely giddy.  One of the so-called fact checkers said it would cost around a trillion dollars over the next 10 years.  Fact checkers?  The GAO (Government Accounting Office) came out in March of 2012 and said it would now cost at least $1.76 trillion and likely $2 trillion over the next ten years.

This comes at a time when the country’s debts have ballooned to around $16 trillion.  Shouldn’t we be looking for ways to cut an already bloated budget instead of increasing it?  Meanwhile, the House of Representatives voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for not turning over documents in the “Fast and Furious” gun running case.  Seventeen Democrats joined the Republican controlled House on the contempt vote.

This is a monster constitutional issue as the Legislative Branch is equal to the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government. New tougher sanctions are set to ratchet up in July against Iran because of its nuclear program.  In Syria, there are reports of British boots on the ground there and military assistance being given to the rebels by the U.S.  The trading loss of JP Morgan has now reportedly turned into a $9 billion loss.  The EU is still a gigantic mess, and they are no closer to solving the problems.  Now, there is talk of the European Central bank cutting rates to 0% or below.  In the end, the Eurozone is facing default of its biggest banks or massive money printing.  I’m going with money printing.  Greg Hunter analyzes these stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up.

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Greg Hunter ~ Gold And Dow Flash The Same Warning Signal

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USA Watchdog | June 4 2012

On Friday, both gold and the Dow flashed the same warning signal—the economy is in deep trouble.  The Dow plunged nearly 275 points on the news of a weak jobs report, and gold rocketed higher by $66 on speculation global bankers are going to print money to resuscitate a dying financial system.  You do not get this kind of tandem move in opposite directions by coincident.  Last week, both the stock and gold markets appeared to stop pretending and acknowledged the vortex of debt and insolvency that could suck us all into a black hole.

Renowned gold expert Jim Sinclair of JSMineset.com said Friday, “Those popular gold writers calling for much lower gold prices are simply out of their mind and disconnected from reality.”  Sinclair has been calling for “QE to infinity” (money printing) for years now, and he’s been right.  Of course, money printing masked the recession/depression since 2008; and now, it looks like more of the same bad medicine is on the way—only a much higher dose.  My only question is when does the money printing stop working and turn the currency into confetti?  It appears we will find out sooner than later.

I heard one analyst on financial TV say the Dow death dive was overdone and it was “. . . just one bad unemployment report.”  I heard another say we’re just going to have to “live with some inflation.”   The rich can live just fine “with some inflation.”  It’s the folks on the other end of the spectrum I worry about, which is 98% of the rest of us.  As far as the unemployment report, there have been so many lousy jobs reports John Williams at Shadowstats.com has been calling what has been going on since the 2008 meltdown “bottom bouncing.”  Looks to me we are hitting bottom, once again.  Forget the rise in “official” unemployment to 8.2% from 8.1%.  It’s been consistently much worse if you measured unemployment the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) did in 1994 or earlier.  In his latest report, Williams said, “. . . during the Clinton Administration, “discouraged workers”—those who had given up looking for a job because there were no jobs to be had—were redefined so as to be counted only if they had been “discouraged” for less than a year.  This time qualification defined away the long-term discouraged workers.  The remaining short-term discouraged workers (less than one year) are included in U.6.”  If you add those “long-term discouraged workers” back in to the BLS calculation, Williams says unemployment “rose to 22.7%, from 22.3% in April.”

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Lucas ~ What Should I Believe? The X-Files On the Situation

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Lucas2012infos | March 11 2012

It looks like seeing through the eyes of Mulder in this world today where you are shown organisations, governments, companies, peoples darkest faces. They let us see their deceit, lies, fraud, unlawful acts, war crimes, crimes against humanity, treason, acts of robbery, etc.

As I was reading through the news of the past few weeks I came across for one instant, a Greek bailout with money that is borrowed and is not even real money. Bonds issued and given fraudulent. Guarantees have been given by EU and Euro zone states in direct violation of the  EU treaty.  No state within the EU nor Euro zone can be held accountable for in this instance any debt of a member state. The ECB violated the treaty and laws also. The  Banks, IMF, Credit organizations, financial institutions and ISDA played their role in the ongoing game within the fraudulent system. The fraud and lies written in ink about how Greece was not defaulted, as it already was, where showing how bad these people and organizations want to stay in power and want to prevent  the new golden age of abundance to take over. The push for an NWO – New World Order in dark cabals style in Europe by Merkel and others will fail. The people are more and more seeing through the smokescreens put up.

A NWO as the best solution presented under a dictatorial EU with already the powers and institutions its needed in place is what they want. They just need the lawful justification to use their ultimate powers to its fullest. The European Court, the WEU as the Armed Forces, The Europol law enforcement agency, The Commission as the Ministers, The chairman of the EU as the new President, The Parliament as what It should be the sheeple blabla representation, etc.  Only the fiscal union that brings the ultimate power of taken money from states, companies and citizens is the new step they want to see in a new EU Constitution to be shuft down our throat. They are out of legitimate money or assets and desperate. So will the cornered cabal make desperate moves.

Even in the USA the things are not different as the fake money games  are  also still played over there. The FED already was in hidden terms accused of fraud in a congressional committee hearing by Ron Paul.  Yes that FED that has its  contract by law expired in 2013 . It  becomes clear the Congress is just a ceremonial place that has nothing to say in its own country.It even does not act when the Constitution needs to be defended.  This came to light by Alex Jones. And if the congress has something to say the voices of the congress often are bought with money via the big dark lobbying companies and institutions. So who is making the laws and bills the House passes. The elections of the  Republican candidates for the next presidency and the series of incidents in  Ron Paul being robbed of  votes and his candidacy are stunning. Polls rigged and fraud with votes is what I read in the alternative media. So this is what you call democracy. It never was then or was it.  It is the system to keep you quit as the real decisions were made elsewhere. If your own armed forces  and president say they only need a legal basis from foreign bodies like a UN or NATO what is your own Constitution and Bill of Rights worth. The answer is clear.

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Mike Shedlock ~ Prepare for Greece to Leave Eurozone

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Global Economic Trend Analysis | January 27 2012

Prepare for Greece to exit the Eurozone. Germany has made a request that in my opinion practically guarantees that outcome. The Financial Times has a pair of articles on the matter but the conclusion above is mine.

German Government Calls for Greece to Cede Sovereignty to Eurozone “Budget Commissioner”

Please consider Call for EU to Control Greek Budget

The German government wants Greece to cede sovereignty over tax and spending decisions to a eurozone “budget commissioner” to secure a second €130bn bail-out, according to a copy of the proposal obtained by the Financial Times.

In what would amount to an extraordinary extension of European Union control over a member state, the new commissioner would have the power to veto budget decisions taken by the Greek government if they were not in line with targets set by international lenders. The new administrator, appointed by other eurozone finance ministers, would take responsibility for overseeing “all major blocks of expenditure” by the Greek government.

Even before Germany circulated its proposal, the EU and International Monetary Fund had presented a 10-page list of “prior actions” Athens must implement before the new bail-out is agreed. According to a copy of the document, also obtained by the FT, Greece must cut an additional 150,000 government jobs within three years.

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