Posted on 07/15/2008 7:39:29 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Merrill Lynch has warned that the United States could face a foreign "financing crisis" within months as the full consequences of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage debacle spread through the world.
The country depends on Asian, Russian and Middle Eastern investors to fund much of its $700bn (£350bn) current account deficit, leaving it far more vulnerable to a collapse of confidence than Japan in the early 1990s after the Nikkei bubble burst. Britain and other Anglo-Saxon deficit states could face a similar retreat by foreign investors.
"Japan was able to cut its interest rates to zero," said Alex Patelis, Merrill's head of international economics.
"It would be very difficult for the US to do this. Foreigners will not be willing to supply the capital. Nobody knows where the limit lies."
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“But the lion’s share is held by the central banks of China, Russia and petro-powers. These countries could all too easily precipitate a run on the dollar in the current climate and bring the United States to its knees, should they decide that it is in their strategic interest to do so.”
Good! Let them do it! About time for a good financial house-cleaning.
Americans will buy America goods, and we will reduce our dependency on foreigners to live.
Plus, I daresay they will walk away unscathed...
Don’t worry, we’ll just keep printing that cash. Print our way to prosperity!
We must print even more and spend, spend, spend. Bailouts for everyone! Print that money!
I hope they don’t! A global economic firestorm would benefit nobody.
A “greater depression” would be worse than the 1930s by far, because of our changed society.
We would very likely lose the last of our freedom as a result, as the sheeple demand an instant govt. cure-all, which would be worse than the disease.
It’s interesting that a Russian Billionaire bought Trump’s Palm Beach house for $100,000,000.
Lots of people have lots of dollars and they are going to have to spend them somewhere. If the world lets the US fail, then what? We still have our natural resources and the intellectual capital. It will be tough. Will it be tougher than the depression? Beats me.
I guess the only thing missing would be the dust.
I finally get it. People are just too damn busy to bother following this serious financial crisis. Every once in a while, they get a snippet of how dire the credit crunch is. But they can’t accept it.
They don’t trust the media, so why should they accept what the media now reports? They don’t trust the government to tell the truth on either side of the coin, warning of bad times ahead while downplaying the severity of the crisis.
Many people are going to keep their rose-colored glasses on because they are too used to conspiracy theories and trying to destroy Republicans and Conservatives. They just aren’t mentally ready to accept the truth and just don’t have the luxury of time to really study up on the enormous severity of this credit crisis. I don’t expect Great Depression, the Sequel, but I certainly appreciate how close we will come to missing it and how bad the economy will get and why. Most people just don’t have the time for this. They are going to have to live it.
It is like the housing bubble. Home owners were so euphoric about seeing their house prices rise rapidly, they just refused to consider that it was all fictitious capital. Can you blame them? You work your ass off for a lifetime — or at least a half — your lifestyle constantly on the wane, eaten up by inflation, and you are working more than ever and never getting ahead. Then your home value seems to soar and the feeling is “finally! something went right and I have a little breathing room!” Who would readily give up that dream? Yet people are learning the extent of the bubble with the collapse of house sales and later house prices.
Maybe the people I call “Freepyannas” are just trying to live a bit more of the elusive dream that has escaped them too long and just don’t want to believe that times may become worse instead of better. This of course is frustrating for you and I and several here, because we aren’t trying to ruin people’s lives or shatter their dreams. I’ll speak for myself, though I have to believe you are similar, when I say, I’m not trying to show them up or crash their dreams, I’m trying to warn them to WAKE UP! WAKE UP! and protect themselves from the economic damage that complacency is going to cause. I’m trying to say “WAKE UP! and study what is really going on with this liquidity and insolvency crisis in banking and how this will affect the national economy and the world. Protect yourself from this coming financial downturn. Don’t lose your life savings.”
For those like you and I, it may be futile. I just want people to read and study and see where we may be going and to protect themselves from financial harm. But you and I and the others can’t make people accept the real possibility of a severe economic downturn. Maybe we need to change our tone. I get frustrated and become sarcastic or flippant. Maybe we just need to be more patient.
It’s just frustrating. It is like seeing floodwater come down a mountain with hours to spare and nobody is willing to evacuate town. Just very frustrating.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!! ;)
Instead of getting through GD2 in one or two hard years, the “cures” demanded by the sheeple and provided by the demagogues may kill the patient—our freedom—and send us into tyranny.
We might get that too.
Exactly. You try to help them with warnings, and you are called a crank and worse.
For me, I decided to move to a location that I hope will be well positioned to ride out a prolonged downturn. Stable ethnography, plenty of water, food grown locally, etc.
I have recently applied for a new home mortgage and had no less than 6 brokers calling everyday. I just don’t see it as that bad if you saved your money and choose this time to invest.
They will suffer much more than us if they do this because it will be like you buy a house and then destroy it losing both of your house and your money. In addition the US can inflict much more painful economic retaliation against any of these nations than they can against us.
The RE’s in Europe bought alot of our debt.
If anyone wants to know exactly who is who here, this link lists all the major holders of the US debt, as of April 2008. Japan, China and UK are the first three, holding about $1.3T; other countries hold insignificant amounts of US debt.
I would suggest it is not only in their interest but much to their liking. Google the terms "neo-eurasionism" or even just "eurasianism" for my logic.
Why dont you give us an idea of what bloomberg is saying.
Is OPEC tied to the dollar by a pact from the Nixon Administration?
Well I am listening. So why don’t you share some suggestions for those of us who are concerned?
Other than stocking up on canned food...
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