Global economy crash

Euro Stands Only 20% Chance of Survival

According to a recently released prediction by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, the Euro only stands a 20 per cent change of surviving the next decade.

“If the euro doesn’t break up, this could be the year when it weakens substantially towards parity with the dollar,” said Douglas Williams, chief executive of CEBR.

The Top 10 Predictions for 2011 according to CEBR:

1) Yet another eurozone crisis

2) Slower economic growth

3) Germany to be the Western economic superstar

4) A serious economic crisis in Japan

5) Inflation to be a bit lower than is conventionally expected

6) Another tough year for consumers

7) Online retailing to dominate consumer spending

8) Banks in the UK to start lending again

9) A year of two halves for the UK housing market

10) India to win the cricket World Cup amongst other sports predictions

For a detailed insight into the predictions for 2011 visit the CEBR report.

Is the U.S. Dollar Finished?

A remarkable consortium of six nations gathered last year in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. Its purpose was to plan a strategy to replace the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. The Shanghai Corporation Organisation may sound innocuous enough but the meeting did pull together world leaders including the Russian Federation’s President Dmitry Medvedev and China’s President Hu Jintao. There was just one notable absentee; the United States, which was denied admission.

On October 30 the rubber stamp descended again at the Russia-ASEAN forum in Hanoi when the decision was made to ‘welcome Russia’s contribution to the Financial Fund of Dialogue Partnership; a euphemism for creating an alternative to dollar trading. Russia is already contributing to the Fund and rouble-financing business development in the region. If the consortium’s strategy succeeds, the value of the U.S. dollar will plunge and the cost of American imports, including oil, will soar.

BREAKAWAY NATIONS

There is growing international resistance to the authority exercised by ‘international’ institutions. Breakaway nations, often acting in packs, see the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Trade Organisation (WTO) as American proxies acting for American interests; particularly the U.S. arms industry. There is a perception that dollar domination is being nourished by its status as a reserve currency into which many nations place the economic and trade assets. The clear aim is to undermine America’s means of waging war.

To put things in perspective the nearest big military spender to the U.S. is the Peoples Republic of China. This is estimated at $65bn. The U.S. defence budget at $623 (2008) is almost ten times the size of China’s military budget.

Chris Hodges says: “The architects of this new global exchange realise that if they break the dollar they also break America’s military domination. U.S. spending cannot be sustained without this cycle of heavy borrowing.

THE DOOMED DOLLAR

As a means of funding the permanent war economy the United States of America has been flooding the world with dollars. Foreign recipients of this largesse exchange it through their national banks for their own currencies. Problems arise when those banks fail to spend their dollars in America. This means the exchange rate increases, which penalises exporters. In a word it is a stitch up but there’s rebellion afoot.

Within recent months President Medvedev has repeated his suggestion for a supranational currency to replace the dollar. With theatrical gesture he pulled from his pocket a sample coin of the ‘united future world currency’. Bearing the words: ‘Unity in Diversity’ it had been minted in Belgium and presented to the heads of the G8 Group of Nations. As recently as September 2009, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development proposed the creation of a new currency that would replace the dollar as a reserve currency. It would be the most revolutionary overhaul in international currencies since World War Two.

SOUTH AMERICA’S FLOATS FREE

China is currently involved with trade deals with Brazil and Malaysia to deal in the yuan. Moscow’s trade delegations have been given laxity in bi-lateral trade deals wherever their roubles take them.

Nine Latin American countries have agreed on the creation of a regional currency; their markets have traditionally been the preserve of Wall Street. The Latin American Sucre would undermine America’s banking system.

What does it mean to us? Once the U.S. dollar is no longer able to flood central banks and the purchase of U.S. treasury bonds (used to fund America military power) loses its appeal, the U.S. global empire disintegrates. The impact on American life would make the Great Depression seem like a walk in the park.

Who Owns the American Dollar?

I have never heard anyone question who owns the U.S. dollar as it seems obvious; the state owns and manages it. Not so quick: It belongs neither to the government of the United States nor, being a republic, to its people.

The actual dollar has not existed for nearly one-hundred years. It ceased to exist in 1913 when it was effectively killed off. Since then what we think of as the American dollar is actually a Federal Reserve Note. Next time you pick up a dollar bill, check it out: It says so right at the top.

Does it matter? Well yes it does actually. Before 1913 the U.S. dollar had a global value just as silver or gold does. On the other hand a Federal Reserve Note is a debt dollar. Like credit on your bank card it doesn’t actually have real value; it is a figure on a digital spreadsheet and that is all. Don’t try this at home but print counterfeit notes and offer them in exchange for goods or services; you get the picture?

SOME CALL THEM BANKSTERS

Remember to print the word ‘Federal’ on your Mickey Mouse money. This way it sure begins to look like it is state-owned. In fact the Federal Reserve is no more state owned than is the Federal Express. The Federal Reserve is a wholly independent, private, untraded and unsupervised banking corporation whose board is made up of a shadowy cabal.

This unique banking corporation; unique because there is none other like it in the world, has the exclusive right to print U.S. dollars, or rather Federal Reserve Notes we think of as the dollar. It is America’s only legal tender. The American government is as powerless as you are to print money; only the Federal Reserve can do that.

WE ARE THE NEW PLANTATION WORKERS

When you need money (credit) you sign an undertaking to repay and your bank allows you to increase your digital debt. When the government needs money it prints IOUs. They call them promissory notes; it sounds better that way.

These it then sells to the Federal Reserve which then prints the dollars to the amount requested and tops up the government’s credit card at 2 per cent interest. In this way the American people; everyone who owns dollars, are instruments of debt, to the Federal Reserve. Where do you get that 2 per cent interest? You cannot print bank notes to that that amount: Why, you get them from the Federal Reserve of course. The Federal Reserve is making interest money on fantasy figure money, which does not actually exist.

Remember (do you really?) the state-owned plantation conglomerates throughout the Americas? These were largely U.S. owned. The plantation workers were employed by the company: These paid the employees in tokens which could be spent only in the company store, which of course was owned by the owners.

Since then the system has become more sophisticated but each of us is tied to the system just as were those plantation workers. Bet you wish you had thought of it first. In the United States just 1 per cent own 60 per cent of the nation’s raw wealth. You will not see that on the Jefferson Monument or the Statue of Liberty’s proclamation.

Global trade sees worst fall in over 60 years

Global trade has suffered severely from the global downturn, falling by 12 per cent in 2009, the worst decline in over 60 years Pascal Lamy, the head of the World Trade Organization revealed Wednesday during a visit to Brussels.

In March of 2009, the World Trade Organization predicted a 9 per cent decrease in global trade and just two months before that the WTO forecast a reduction in global trade of just 2.8 per cent.

Lamy declined to give any figure about world trade in 2010 but said: “Certainly there is a pick-up. Whether this pick-up is short term … or whether this is sustainable … is difficult to say but we certainly are picking up.”

The Doha Round of trade negotiations that started in 2001 with an aim to achieve fair global trade, especially for poorer countries has been plagued by endless disagreements. Deadlines to reach a consensus have been repeatedly missed, with the latest coming up the end of this year.

Lamy placed the blame of the global trade collapse last year on a reduction in demand “across all major world economies” as well as the lack of financing and increasing tariffs or national subsidies.

Dr Doom advises investors to prepare for a “dirty war”

Marc Faber, who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the current economic downturn, has warned investors who manage billions, that they should prepare for a “dirty war” and buy farmland and gold.

The bleak warning of social and financial collapse was given in Tokyo, Japan last week at a meetup of 700 of the world’s most powerful investors.

“The next war will be a dirty war,” he told fund managers: “What are you going to do when your mobile phone gets shut down or the internet stops working or the city water supplies get poisoned?”

Underlying reasons for Dr. Faber’s advise evolved around the volatile US economy and its capacity to service an ever increasing pile of debt, evidently leading to US bankruptcy. Gloomier scenarios involved forecast of increasing military tension between the US and China over access to limited oil resources.

Marc Faber who writes the monthly Gloom, Boom and Doom report, has a tendency to make unconventional predictions – nevertheless, he has a track record of getting the right.