Is the world doomed to suffer another Depression?

Europe is in disarray, stock markets are plunging, the banking crisis is back in full swing, gold is at record levels, and both the UK and US are self-evidently slipping back towards recession – not since the autumn of 2008 have things looked quite so ominous.

We appear to be at another pivotal moment, with Western economies once more staring into the abyss. At a conference in Frankfurt this week, Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, compared events to the Lehman Brothers catastrophe of 2008 and warned that many banks in Europe are essentially bust. His opposite number at KfW went further still and said that the present cocktail of negatives was “much more dramatic than 2008”.

Back then, governments and central banks still had the financial firepower and the will to attack the problem with massive injections of fiscal and monetary stimulus.

Today, the fiscal armoury is exhausted, while it is not clear that further monetary easing through the printing presses of “quantitative easing” would have any effect beyond adding to inflation.

Indeed, the parallels look alarmingly closer to the banking collapses of 1931, which plunged the world into prolonged depression, than the storms around the Lehman collapse.

In Europe and the US policymakers are paralysed – by growing Euroscepticism among electorates on the one hand and fierce Republican resistance to further deficit spending on the other. There is little or no consensus about what needs to be done. In Europe, governments are a million miles away from either of the two remedies likely to resolve the crisis: break-up of the euro or the establishment of political and fiscal union.

Yes, and everyone should have been preparing for it for several years now.

Yep. There are powerful people who want the dollar to collapse so a world bank can rise from the ashes to save us all. They are globalists and seek one world governance. If they can create a new world currency/bank they will become very wealthy and we will become very poor. Soros and his ilk are globalists.

This idea also appeals to the socialists who despise exceptionalism in any nation. At their core, they would rather have each nation equally miserable. Equality is more important to them than exceptionalism. Don’t believe me? Look at the reverance they have for a disfunctional U.N. They are useful idiots to the globalists. Obama anyone?

If I sound like a conspiracy kook feel free to straighten me out. I used to make fun of people who said the same thing I just wrote but nothing else makes sense. I don’t even think it has to be centrally organized.... it’s simple trend analysis.

Preparation is important but the next U.S. election is the biggest impediment we can throw at them. I pray we get it right!

There are many, many things folks now think about, or have to try very very hard to avoid thinking about, that they didn’t use to have to.

And the political junkies hope for an election “cure”.

You really don’t have go full auto “global” to see the depth of the problem...it’s been building for years and the usurper used his moment to accelerate it past the tipping point.

Just a few cases in point (I am sure you can add others)

1. 1 in 3 Americans unemployed? I heard this recently. Whatever the number ALL economists agree the jobs lost are NOT coming back. End of employment (particularly for white males) as it was understood.

2. Over 50% of the population on some form of assistance. Maybe this counts Soc. Sec. not just SSI, I don’t know. But the fact is we have a slacker society. That isn’t going to change.

3. Federal and many State budget outlooks, beyond repair. Only cuts and broken promises on pensions etc. lie in the future for as far as the eye can see. That isn’t going to Change.

4. Federal debt, basically unrecoverable at this point. Who owns this debt?, does it matter (yes), what will the shake-out be as this continues to spiral out of control. No one knows or really wants to tell you (think Argentina).

5. Civility, educational standards, union death throes and threats to take everyone else down with them, zero cultural glue, fractured ethniciies dominating population growth. America needs to do a search for a new name to match reality.

The potential for violence, disintegration, and lifelong distress for those under 40 years old, is very very real.

The fact that you even have to say or think these things shows the extant of the damage.

An eleciton of socialists over the comminists will not change a thing on any of these items.

Buy guns and amo, create defensible space, store food, and have a bug out plan.

you might live a little while longer. That’s all there is now.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.