20 Signs That The Global Economic Crisis Is Starting To Catch Fire

Freedom Outpost ^ | February 14, 2014 | Michael Snyder

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

If you have been waiting for the "global economic crisis" to begin, just open up your eyes and look around. I know that most Americans tend to ignore what happens in the rest of the world because they consider it to be "irrelevant" to their daily lives, but the truth is that the massive economic problems that are currently sweeping across Europe, Asia and South America are going to be affecting all of us here in the U.S. very soon. Sadly, most of the big news organizations in this country seem to be more concerned about the fate of Justin Bieber's wax statue in Times Square than about the horrible financial nightmare that is gripping emerging markets all over the planet. After a brief period of relative calm, we are beginning to see signs of global financial instability that are unlike anything that we have witnessed since the financial crisis of 2008. As you will see below, the problems are not just isolated to a few countries. This is truly a global phenomenon.

Over the past few years, the Federal Reserve and other global central banks have inflated an unprecedented financial bubble with their reckless money printing. Much of this "hot money" poured into emerging markets all over the world. But now that the Federal Reserve has begun "tapering" quantitative easing, investors are taking this as a sign that the party is ending. Money is being pulled out of emerging markets all over the globe at a staggering pace and this is creating a tremendous amount of financial instability. In addition, the economic problems that have been steadily growing over the past few years in established economies throughout Europe and Asia just continue to escalate. The following are 20 signs that the global economic crisis is starting to catch fire...

#1 The unemployment rate in Greece has hit a brand new record high of 28 percent.

#2 The youth unemployment rate in Greece has hit a brand new record high of 64.1 percent.

#3 The percentage of bad loans in Italy is at an all-time record high.

#4 Italian industrial output declined again in December, and the Italian government is on the verge of collapse.

#5 The number of jobseekers in France has risen for 30 of the last 32 months, and at this point it has climbed to a new all-time record high.

#6 The total number of business failures in France in 2013 was even higher than in any year during the last financial crisis.

#7 It is being projected that housing prices in Spain will fall another 10 to 15 percent as their economic depression deepens.

#8 The economic and political turmoil in Turkey is spinning out of control. The government has resorted to blasting protesters with pepper spray and water cannons in a desperate attempt to restore order.

#9 It is being estimated that the inflation rate in Argentina is now over 40 percent, and the peso is absolutely collapsing.

#10 Gangs of armed bandits are roaming the streets in Venezuela as the economic chaos in that troubled nation continues to escalate.

#11 China appears to be very serious about deleveraging. The deflationary effects of this are going to be felt all over the planet. The following is an excerpt from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's recent article entitled "World asleep as China tightens deflationary vice"...

China's Xi Jinping has cast the die. After weighing up the unappetising choice before him for a year, he has picked the lesser of two poisons.

The balance of evidence is that most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong aims to prick China's $24 trillion credit bubble early in his 10-year term, rather than putting off the day of reckoning for yet another cycle.

This may be well-advised for China, but the rest of the world seems remarkably nonchalant over the implications.

#12 There was a significant debt default by a coal company in China last Friday...

A high-yield investment product backed by a loan to a debt-ridden coal company failed to repay investors when it matured last Friday, state media reported on Wednesday, in the latest sign of financial stress in China's shadow bank sector.

#13 Japan's Nikkei stock index has already fallen by 14 percent so far in 2014. That is a massive decline in just a month and a half.

#14 Ukraine continues to fall apart financially...

The worsening political and economic circumstances in Ukraine has prompted the Fitch Ratings agency to downgrade Ukrainian debt from B to a pre–default level CCC. This is lower than Greece, and Fitch warns of future financial instability.

#15 The unemployment rate in Australia has risen to the highest level in more than 10 years.

#16 The central bank of India is in a panic over the way that Federal Reserve tapering is effecting their financial system.

#17 The effects of Federal Reserve tapering are also being felt in Thailand...

In the wake of the US Federal Reserve tapering, emerging economies with deteriorating macroeconomic figures or visible political instability are being punished by skittish markets. Thailand is drifting towards both these tendencies.

#18 One of Ghana's most prominent economists says that the economy of Ghana will crash by June if something dramatic is not done.

#19 Yet another banker has mysteriously died during the prime years of his life. That makes five "suspicious banker deaths" in just the past two weeks alone.

#20 The behavior of the U.S. stock market continues to parallel the behavior of the U.S. stock market in 1929.

Yes, things don't look good right now, but it is important to keep in mind that this is just the beginning.

This is just the leading edge of the next great financial storm.

The next two years (2014 and 2015) are going to represent a major "turning point" for the global economy. By the end of 2015, things are going to look far different than they do today.

None of the problems that caused the last financial crisis have been fixed. Global debt levels have grown by 30 percent since the last financial crisis, and the too big to fail banks in the United States are 37 percent larger than they were back then and their behavior has become even more reckless than before.

As a result, we are going to get to go through another "2008-style crisis", but I believe that this next wave is going to be even worse than the previous one.

So hold on tight and get ready. We are going to be in for quite a bumpy ride.

Get my new book about the future of America: The Beginning of the End.

[bgill]

just open up your eyes and look around. I know that most Americans tend to ignore what happens in the rest of the world because they consider it to be "irrelevant" to their daily lives

It's also interesting that none of this is being shown on the evening news. Even if eyes are open, many Americans are clueless when they leave their news in the hands of the biased msm. Yes, war is coming, that's another thing many Americans are in the dark about.

[Koracan]

People need to understand, Level of Industrial Automation - Unemployment - Recession _ Immigration _ Job Export, are all direct related.
Some informed in the Automation systems business estimate in in a few decades, only 20% of an able human being is needed to work due to Xfer of Tasks to the ""Machine"".
In the Press they call it chronic unemployment, better is perhaps, machine displaced, so go play tennis or drink a beer in the local bar, you will never have a Job again.
The old saying, that they have to get re-educated or get a College degree, and then they will find higher jobs to build or maintain or supervise the machine is obsolete. It takes only a hand full of people to do that Job.

There are a lot of Jobs left that automation can not do, but you don't need special qualification for that, Labor only, so now we understand cheap labor {import immigrants or export tasks to Countries with cheap Labor - same thing, different location)
The only resolution will be a drastic re-thinking of the Monetary distribution system.(Society as we know it}
Of course this sounds all Soci/Commi like, but this is not the intend here. As much as we like to hear it , History Does Not repeat itself.

[rw4site]

Hydroponics/aqua-phonics are two methods that will over come rocks. Bales of hay will also serve as a growing medium for many plants, especially potatoes.

[Starstruck]

Don’t worry about it. SHTF will give you more free time to write poetry and work on your music.

[Foundahardheadedwoman]

Without some basic idea of history a lot of people will never see it coming, sad thing is they don’t want to know. Might interfere with their football game.

I was in sales for to many years, had a customer who when asked a closing question, did not respond. I was baffled, this had gone on for an hour until I noticed he had broke into a sweat, veins on his head stood out, and he asked for an aspirin. While I went to get the aspirin it occurred to me that he could not answer, he could not make a decision. I gave him the aspirin and some water and gave him a minute and turned the papers and said, Sign here, here, and here. He did and was again the man I had started talking to.

I had never assumed a close before, it had never occurred to me that it could or would work. This was over twenty years ago and I have often wondered how many people are out there who are incapable of making any kind of decision and how did they become that way. This guy was otherwise sane, at least it appeared that way to me.

Maybe there a millions like him that cannot think for themselves, frozen when they even try to make a decision. Maybe the zombies are already here and I just didn’t know it. Maybe I am one of them cause I didn’t realize they were among us, I was waiting for somebody to tell me.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Yes, I know, that’s what the Democrats told me.

[SisterK]

Did you hear that one of the bankers did “suicide” by nail gun? Shot himself about 8 times in the chest and 7 times in the head. With a nail gun.

[Ellendra]

My dad is among those who can’t make a decision to save their lives. He truly believes that decisiveness is unthinkably rude. I have to work very hard sometimes not to fall back into that.

Once he told me about the restaurant he often stops at for lunch. They had a new person working at the counter. He ordered the number meal he wanted, and she started asking about which bread he wanted, which cheese he wanted, sauce or no sauce? Lettuce? Tomato? What flavor chips? . . . . He froze solid. Then the manager came out, dragged the new girl to the back, and he could hear the manager telling her “That’s (name)! You don’t ask what he wants, you just pick what you think he should eat and sell it to him!”

[DuncanWaring]

A murder in Sarajevo in the summer of 1914 might have seemed a minor event, too.

[VerySadAmerican]

I’ve got a small garden. But it’s not enough to feed my wife and I.

This guy mentions the 2008 dump and says nothing has been fixed. I’ve watched home prices go through the roof in Houston and the surrounding area. A neighborhood down the street that had new homes starting in the $180s are now in the $220s. The prices have gone up this much in the past two years. Another neighborhood that had homes starting at $220,000 has sold out in three years. The prices in the end were in the $340s.

New homes in my neighborhood have gone up about 15%. No builder seems to want to build anything under $150,000 and KB is not building many specs. They’re marketing a “build to order” campaign. Zillow shows the value of my home going up 8% since December. There is definitely a bubble being inflated that will burst.