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Two More Harbingers Of Financial Doom That Mirror The Crisis Of 2008
Two More Harbingers Of Financial Doom That Mirror The Crisis Of 2008
The stock market continues to flirt with new record highs, but the signs that we could be on the precipice of the next major financial crisis continue to mount.
A couple of days ago, I discussed the fact that the U.S. dollar is experiencing a tremendous surge in value just like it did in the months prior to the financial crisis of 2008. And previously, I have detailed how the price of oil has collapsed, prices for industrial commodities are tanking and market behavior is becoming extremely choppy.
All of these are things that we witnessed just before the last market crash as well. It is also important to note that orders for durable goods are declining and the Baltic Dry Index has dropped to the lowest level on record. So does all of this mean that the stock market is guaranteed to crash in 2015? No, of course not. But what we are looking for are probabilities. We are looking for patterns. There are multiple warning signs that have popped up repeatedly just prior to previous financial crashes, and many of those same warning signs are now appearing once again.
One of these warning signs that I have not discussed previously is the wholesale inventories to sales ratio. When economic activity starts to slow down, inventory tends to get backed up. And that is precisely what is happening right now. In fact, as Wolf Richter recently wrote about, the wholesale inventories to sales ratio has now hit a level that we have not seen since the last recession…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
If You Listen Carefully, The Bankers Are Actually Telling Us What Is Going To Happen Next
If You Listen Carefully, The Bankers Are Actually Telling Us What Is Going To Happen Next
Are we on the verge of a major worldwide economic downturn? Well, if recent warnings from prominent bankers all over the world are to be believed, that may be precisely what we are facing in the months ahead. As you will read about below, the big banks are warning that the price of oil could soon drop as low as 20 dollars a barrel, that a Greek exit from the eurozone could push the EUR/USD down to 0.90, and that the global economy could shrink by more than 2 trillion dollars in 2015. Most of the time, very few people ever actually read the things that the big banks write for their clients. But in recent months, a lot of these bankers are issuing such ominous warnings that you would think that they have started to write for The Economic Collapse Blog. Of course we have seen this happen before. Just before the financial crisis of 2008, a lot of people at the big banks started to get spooked, and now we are beginning to see an atmosphere of fear spread on Wall Street once again. Nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next, but an increasing number of experts are starting to agree that it won’t be good.
Let’s start with oil. Over the past couple of weeks, we have seen a nice rally for the price of oil. It has bounced back into the low 50s, which is still a catastrophically low level, but it has many hoping for a rebound to a range that will be healthy for the global economy.
Unfortunately, many of the experts at the big banks are now anticipating that the exact opposite will happen instead. For example, Citibank says that we could see the price of oil go as low as 20 dollars this year…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The global financial system stands on the brink of second credit crisis
The global financial system stands on the brink of second credit crisis
The world financial system stands on the brink of a second credit crisis as interbank lending shows increasing risk
The world economy stands on the brink of a second credit crisis as the vital transmission systems for lending between banks begin to seize up and the debt markets fall over. The latest round of quantitative easing from the European Central Bank will buy some time but it looks like too little too late.
It was the collapse of US house prices back in 2007 that resulted in the seizure of the credit markets and banking crisis of 2008. And it would be easy to lay the blame for the 2008 financial crisis at the doorstep of American home owners, easy but wrong. The collapse of the US housing market was not the cause of the crisis, it was merely a symptom of the more insidious ills of cheap credit, low risk and the promise of another bailout round the corner.
The Keynesian pump priming that has taken place on a colossal scale across the world is failing. The Chinese economy was growing at 12pc in 2010, but that slowed to 7.7pc in 2013 and 7.4pc last year — its weakest in 24 years. Economists expect Chinese growth to slow to 7pc this year. It is the once booming property sector that has turned into a bust, and is now dragging down the wider economy as the bubble deflates.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Is Canada Headed For Another Recession? Eight Troubling Signs
Is Canada Headed For Another Recession? Eight Troubling Signs
A string of dire economic news since the beginning of 2015 has many observers worried about whether Canada could be on the brink of another downturn, but economists say it’s too soon to mention the “R-word.”
One month in, layoffs seem to be the dominant theme — the second-largest in Canadian history at Target and many more in the battered oil sector.
The Bank of Canada shocked Canadians with a surprise interest rate cut and the loonie has fallen to levels not seen since the Great Recession of 2008-2009.
The news pouring in about the end of last year has been a bit worrisome. The economy shrank in November — and that was before oil prices reached their current lows, something the central bank has determined is decidedly bad for the Canadian economy. Job creation estimates were also revised last month, and job growth for 2014 was slashed by a third, suggesting further underlying weakness in the labour market.
Canada’s situation doesn’t appear on the path to improving any time soon, with oil prices expected to remain low for the remainder of the year. In its rate decision, the Bank of Canada said the cut was insurance — but insurance against what?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Birth Pangs Of The Coming Great Depression
Birth Pangs Of The Coming Great Depression
The signs of the times are everywhere – all you have to do is open up your eyes and look at them. When a pregnant woman first goes into labor, the birth pangs are usually fairly moderate and are not that close together. But as the time for delivery approaches, they become much more frequent and much more intense. Economically, what we are experiencing right now are birth pangs of the coming Great Depression. As we get closer to the crisis that is looming on the horizon, they will become even more powerful. This week, we learned that the Baltic Dry Index has fallen to the lowest level that we have seen in 29 years. The Baltic Dry Index also crashed during the financial collapse of 2008, but right now it is already lower than it was at any point during the last financial crisis. In addition, “Dr. Copper” and other industrial commodities continue to plunge. This almost always happens before we enter an economic downturn. Meanwhile, as I mentioned the other day, orders for durable goods are declining. This is also a traditional indicator that a recession is approaching. The warning signs are there – we just have to be open to what they are telling us.
And of course there are so many more parallels between past economic downturns and what is happening right now.
For example, volatility has returned to the markets in a big way. On Tuesday the Dow was down about 300 points, on Wednesday it was down another couple hundred points, and then on Thursday it was up a couple hundred points.
This is precisely how markets behave just before they crash. When markets are calm, they tend to go up. When markets get really choppy and start behaving erratically, that tells us that a big move down is usually coming.
At the same time, almost every major global currency is imploding. For much more on this, see the amazing charts in this article.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Birth Pangs Of The Coming Great Depression
Birth Pangs Of The Coming Great Depression
The signs of the times are everywhere – all you have to do is open up your eyes and look at them. When a pregnant woman first goes into labor, the birth pangs are usually fairly moderate and are not that close together. But as the time for delivery approaches, they become much more frequent and much more intense. Economically, what we are experiencing right now are birth pangs of the coming Great Depression. As we get closer to the crisis that is looming on the horizon, they will become even more powerful. This week, we learned that the Baltic Dry Index has fallen to the lowest level that we have seen in 29 years. The Baltic Dry Index also crashed during the financial collapse of 2008, but right now it is already lower than it was at any point during the last financial crisis. In addition, “Dr. Copper” and other industrial commodities continue to plunge. This almost always happens before we enter an economic downturn. Meanwhile, as I mentioned the other day, orders for durable goods are declining. This is also a traditional indicator that a recession is approaching. The warning signs are there – we just have to be open to what they are telling us.
And of course there are so many more parallels between past economic downturns and what is happening right now.
For example, volatility has returned to the markets in a big way. On Tuesday the Dow was down about 300 points, on Wednesday it was down another couple hundred points, and then on Thursday it was up a couple hundred points.
This is precisely how markets behave just before they crash. When markets are calm, they tend to go up. When markets get really choppy and start behaving erratically, that tells us that a big move down is usually coming.
At the same time, almost every major global currency is imploding. For much more on this, see the amazing charts in this article.
In particular, I am greatly concerned about the collapse of the euro. The Swiss would not have decoupled their currency from the euro if it was healthy. And political events in Greece are certainly not going to help things either. Economic conditions across Europe just continue to get worse, and the future of the eurozone itself is very much in doubt at this point. And if the eurozone does break up, a European economic depression is almost virtually assured – at least in the short term.
And I haven’t even mentioned the oil crash yet.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Brazil’s Economy Is On The Verge Of Total Collapse
Brazil’s Economy Is On The Verge Of Total Collapse
Back when the BRICs were the source of marginal global growth, the punditry couldn’t stop praising them. However, in the past year, now that China’s housing bubble has burst and its shadow banking system has imploded, those who remember what BRIC actually stood for are about as rare as those who recall what it means for the Fed to hike rates. Which is precisely why nobody in the mainstream financial media has commented on the absolutely abysmal economic update reported earlier today out Brazil.
We are happy to do so because today’s data follows up quite well to our article from a month ago “Brazil’s Economy Just Imploded” and as the earlier article on the crashing Brazilian Real hinted, things for the Brazilian economy how gone from imploding to, well, worse because not only did the twin fiscal and current account deficits rise even more, hitting a whopping 11% of GDP – the worst since August 1999, but its government debt soared to 63.4% in 2014, up from 56.7% a year ago, and the highest since at least 2006. In short – the entire economy is now on the verge of total collapse.
This is what happened in a few bullet points:
- The fiscal picture has deteriorated very sharply since 2011 at both the flow (fiscal deficit) and stock (gross public debt) levels. The primary and overall nominal fiscal surpluses at year-end 2014 were at levels last seen in the late 1990s.
- The steady decline of the public sector savings rate is leading to a wider current account deficit despite weaker growth and low investment. In fact, the twin fiscal and current account deficits are now tracking at a combined, very troublesome 10.9% of GDP, the worst picture in 15 years (since August 1999). Repairing the severely unbalanced macro picture would require a deep, structural and permanent fiscal and quasi-fiscal adjustment and a significantly weaker BRL.
- The new economic team faces, among other things, the very significant challenge of repairing the severely deteriorated fiscal picture.
- The steady erosion of the fiscal stance pushed net and gross public debt up. Furthermore, fiscal and quasi-fiscal activism undermined the effectiveness of monetary policy, contributed to keep inflation very high and drove the current account deficit to a very high level despite weak growth.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Shemitah: The Biblical Pattern Which Indicates That A Financial Collapse May Be Coming In 2015 – See more at: http://www.thedailysheeple.com/the-shemitah-the-biblical-pattern-which-indicates-that-a-financial-collapse-may-be-coming-in-2015_012015#sthash.0u6YG0le.dpuf
The Shemitah: The Biblical Pattern Which Indicates That A Financial Collapse May Be Coming In 2015
We are really starting to see the price of oil weigh very heavily on the economy and on the stock market. On Tuesday, the Dow was down 291 points, and the primary reason for the decline was disappointing corporate sales numbers. For example, heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar is blaming the “dramatic decline in the price of oil” for much lower than anticipated sales during the fourth quarter of 2014. Even though Caterpillar is not an “energy company”, the price of oil is critical to their success. And the same could be said about thousands of other companies. That is why I have repeatedly stated that anyone who believes that collapsing oil prices are good for the U.S. economy is crazy. The key to how much damage this oil collapse is going to do to our economy is not how low prices ultimately go. Rather, the key is how long they stay at these low levels. If the price of oil went back to $80 a barrel next week, the damage would be fairly minimal. But if the price of oil stays at this current level for the remainder of 2015, the damage will be absolutely catastrophic. Just think of the price of oil like a hot iron. If you touch it for just a fraction of a second, it won’t do too much damage. But if you press it against your skin for an hour, you will be severely damaged for the rest of your life at the very least.
So the damage that we are witnessing right now is just the very beginning unless the price of oil goes back up substantially.
When the price of oil first started crashing, most analysts focused on the impact that it would have on energy companies. And without a doubt, quite a few of them are likely to be wiped out if things don’t change soon.
But of even greater importance is the ripple effects that the price of oil will have throughout our entire economy. The oil price crash is not that many months old at this point, and yet big companies are already blaming it for causing significant problems. The following is how Caterpillar explained their disappointing sales numbers on Tuesday…
– See more at: http://www.thedailysheeple.com/the-shemitah-the-biblical-pattern-which-indicates-that-a-financial-collapse-may-be-coming-in-2015_012015#sthash.0u6YG0le.dpuf
A new theory of energy and the economy – Part 1 – Generating economic growth
A new theory of energy and the economy – Part 1 – Generating economic growth
How does the economy really work? In my view, there are many erroneous theories in published literature. I have been investigating this topic and have come to the conclusion that both energy and debt play an extremely important role in an economic system. Once energy supply and other aspects of the economy start hitting diminishing returns, there is a serious chance that a debt implosion will bring the whole system down. In this post, I will look at the first piece of this story, relating to how the economy is tied to energy, and how the leveraging impact of cheap energy creates economic growth.
Trying to tackle this topic is a daunting task. The subject crosses many fields of study, including anthropology, ecology, systems analysis, economics, and physics of a thermodynamically open system. It also involves reaching limits in a finite world. Most researchers have tackled the subject without understanding the many issues involved. I hope my analysis can shed some light on the subject.
I plan to add related posts later.
An Overview of a Networked Economy
The economy is a networked system of customers, businesses, and governments. It is tied together by a financial system and by many laws and customs that have grown up over the years. I represent the economic network as a child’s toy made of sticks that connect together, but that can, if disturbed in the wrong way, collapse.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The End Of The World Of Finance As We Know It
The End Of The World Of Finance As We Know It
I’ve said before, and quite a while ago too, – more than once-, that the world of investing as we’ve come to know it is over. It’s still as true as it was then, and I can only hope that more people today understand why it is true, and why I said it in the past. The basic underlying argument then and now is that financial markets have been distorted to such an extent by the activities, the interventions, of central banks – and governments -, that they can no longer function, period.
What we’ve seen since 2008 – not that things were fine and rosy before that – is that all ‘private’ losses were taken over by the public sector, just so the private sector didn’t have to fess up to what it lost, and the appearance of a functioning market system could be upheld. And those who organized this charade were dead on in thinking that as long as Dow and S&P numbers would look good, and they said ‘recovery’ in the media often enough, people would believe there still was a functioning financial marketplace. And they did. But those days are over. Or at least, they soon will be.
What I mean by that is that the functioning marketplace is long gone, and only now people’s beliefs, too, about it are changing, being forced to change, and soon quite radically. The entire idea that ruled the world of finance and kept it -seemingly – standing upright is crumbling fast. And we’re going to have to find a way to deal with that. As of today, we have none, we come up zero. The overriding narrative – which overrides every other thought – is that we’re on our way back to recovery. And then we’ll get back to becoming ever richer, live in ever bigger homes and drive ever bigger, smarter and faster cars. Or something in that vein.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
One Region That Could Benefit Most From Low Oil Prices
One Region That Could Benefit Most From Low Oil Prices
The current low price of oil so far has been a mixed blessing for the world economy.
Some countries, such as the poor OPEC member Venezuela, are hurt by the price drop. Many others benefit, in most cases simply because their businesses and consumers pay less for oil. And some, such as Canada, have trouble in their oil-producing provinces, but expect booms elsewhere.
In East Asia, though, the 50 percent drop in the price of crude since June appears to have created opportunities for economic growth. And the biggest winner here is also the biggest player in the region, China, which could see its economy rely less on exports and more on demand by its own population.
Related: Top Five Possible Energy Surprises For 2015
This is a “fantastic opportunity” not only for Chinese manufacturers but also for other countries that rely on exports, according to Stephen Roach, a senior fellow at Yale’s Jackson Institute of Global Affairs.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
A Camp Amid the Ruins
A Camp Amid the Ruins
Well, the Fates were apparently listening last week. As I write this, stock markets around the world are lurching through what might just be the opening moves of the Crash of 2015, whipsawed by further plunges in the price of oil and a range of other bad economic news; amid a flurry of layoffs and dropping rig counts, the first bankruptcy in the fracking industry has been announced, with more on their way; gunfire in Paris serves up a brutal reminder that the rising spiral of political violence I traced in last week’s post is by no means limited to North American soil. The cheerleaders of business as usual in the media are still insisting at the top of their lungs that America’s new era of energy independence is still on its way; those of my readers who recall the final days of the housing bubble that burst in 2008, or the tech-stock bubble that popped in 2000, will recognize a familiar tone in the bluster.
It’s entirely possible, to be sure, that central banks and governments will be able to jerry-rig another round of temporary supports for the fraying architecture of the global economy, and postpone a crash—or at least drag out the agony a bit longer. It’s equally possible that other dimensions of the crisis of our age can be forestalled or postponed by drastic actions here and now. That said, whether the process is fast or slow, whether the crunch hits now or a bit further down the road, the form of technic society I’ve termed abundance industrialism is on its way out through history’s exit turnstile, and an entire world of institutions and activities familiar to all of us is going with it.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
11 Predictions Of Economic Disaster In 2015 From Top Experts All Over The Globe
11 Predictions Of Economic Disaster In 2015 From Top Experts All Over The Globe
Will 2015 be a year of financial crashes, economic chaos and the start of the next great worldwide depression? Over the past couple of years, we have all watched as global financial bubbles have gotten larger and larger. Despite predictions that they could burst at any time, they have just continued to expand. But just like we witnessed in 2001 and 2008, all financial bubbles come to an end at some point, and when they do implode the pain can be extreme. Personally, I am entirely convinced that the financial markets are more primed for a financial collapse now than they have been at any other time since the last crisis happened nearly seven years ago. And I am certainly not alone. At this point, the warning cries have become a deafening roar as a whole host of prominent voices have stepped forward to sound the alarm. The following are 11 predictions of economic disaster in 2015 from top experts all over the globe…
#1 Bill Fleckenstein: “They are trying to make the stock market go up and drag the economy along with it. It’s not going to work. There’s going to be a big accident. When people realize that it’s all a charade, the dollar will tank, the stock market will tank, and hopefully bond markets will tank. Gold will rally in that period of time because it’s done what it’s done because people have assumed complete infallibility on the part of the central bankers.”
#2 John Ficenec: “In the US, Professor Robert Shiller’s cyclically adjusted price earnings ratio – or Shiller CAPE – for the S&P 500 is currently at 27.2, some 64pc above the historic average of 16.6. On only three occasions since 1882 has it been higher – in 1929, 2000 and 2007.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Preppernomics: How to Survive While the Dollar Dies
Preppernomics: How to Survive While the Dollar Dies
I really don’t like to make predictions.
I’m not Zoltan, the fortune-telling dude in the machine – you know, the one with the turban who waves his mechanical hands dramatically over a crystal ball and tells you of your future in a heavily accented voice.
But, I think there is something coming in 2015 that we all need to be concerned about, and I wouldn’t be doing my job, writing these posts, if I didn’t warn you.
Some people are going to roll their eyes and call me a doomer. Some people are going to say, “You warned us about stuff all the time, and it hardly ever happens.” Some people are going to revert to cognitive dissonance and say, “Life is too short to worry all the time.”
But there is something very troubling on the horizon, and it’s going to affect us all. From most reports, the outlook for 2015 is not particularly bright.
Economically speaking, the bottom is falling out.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Archdruid Report: The Cold Wet Mackerel of Reality
The Archdruid Report: The Cold Wet Mackerel of Reality.
