The Financial Apocalypse Accelerates as Middle East Stocks Crash to Begin the Week - By Michael Snyder -
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-financial-apocalypse-accelerates-as-middle-east-stocks-crash-to-begin-the-week
It looks like it is going to be another chaotic week for global financial markets. On Sunday, news that Iran plans to dramatically ramp up oil production sent stocks plunging all across the Middle East. Stocks in Kuwait were down 3.1 percent, stocks in Saudi Arabia plummeted 5.4 percent, and stocks in Qatar experienced a mammoth 7 percent decline. And of course all of this comes in the context of a much larger long-term decline for Middle Eastern stocks. At this point, Saudi Arabian stocks are down more than 50 percent from their 2014 highs. Needless to say, a lot of very wealthy people in Saudi Arabia are getting very nervous. Could you imagine waking up someday and realizing that more than half of your fortune had been wiped out? Things aren't that bad in the U.S. quite yet, but it looks like another rough week could be ahead. The Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are all down at least 12 percent from their 52-week highs, and the Russell 2000 is already in bear market territory. Hopefully this week will not be as bad as last week, but events are starting to move very rapidly now.
Much of the chaos around the globe is being driven by the price of oil. At the end of last week the price of oil dipped below 30 dollars a barrel, and now Iran has announced plans "to add 1 million barrels to its daily crude production"...
Iran could get more than five times as much cash from oil sales by year-end as the lifting of economic sanctions frees the OPEC member to boost crude exports and attract foreign investment needed to rebuild its energy industry.
The Persian Gulf nation will be able to access all of its revenue from crude sales after the U.S. and five other global powers removed sanctions on Saturday in return for Iran's curbing its nuclear program. The fifth-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries had been receiving only $700 million of each month's oil earnings under an interim agreement, with the rest blocked in foreign bank accounts. Iran is striving to add 1 million barrels to its daily crude production and exports this year amid a global supply glut that has pushed prices 22 percent lower this month.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out what this is going to do to the price of oil.
The price of oil has already fallen more than 20 percent so far in 2016, and overall it has declined by more than 70 percent since late 2014.
When the price of oil first started to fall, a lot of people out there were proclaiming that it would be really good for the U.S. economy. But I said just the opposite. And of course since that time we have seen an endless parade of debt downgrades, bankruptcies and job losses. 130,000 good paying energy jobs were lost in the United States in 2015 alone because of this collapse, and things just continue to get even worse. At this point, some are even calling for the federal government to intervene. For example, the following is an excerpt from a CNN article that was just posted entitled "Is it time to bail out the U.S. oil industry?"...
America's once-booming oil industry is suddenly in deep financial trouble.
The epic crash in oil prices has wiped out tens of thousands of jobs, caused dozens of bankruptcies and spooked global financial markets.
The fallout is already being felt in oil-rich states like Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota, where home foreclosure rates are spiking and economic growth is slowing.
Now there are calls in at least some corners for the federal government to come to the rescue.
Is it just me, or is all of this really starting to sound a lot like 2008?
And of course it isn't just the U.S. that is facing troubles. The global financial crisis that began during the second half of 2015 is rapidly accelerating, and chaos is erupting all over the planet. The following summary of what we have been seeing in recent days comes from Doug Noland...
The world has changed significantly - perhaps profoundly - over recent weeks. The Shanghai Composite has dropped 17.4% over the past month (Shenzhen down 21%). Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was down 8.2% over the past month, with Hang Seng Financials sinking 11.9%. WTI crude is down 26% since December 15th. Over this period, the GSCI Commodities Index sank 12.2%. The Mexican peso has declined almost 7% in a month, the Russian ruble 10% and the South African rand 12%. A Friday headline from the Financial Times: "Emerging market stocks retreat to lowest since 09."
Trouble at the "Periphery" has definitely taken a troubling turn for the worse. Hope that things were on an uptrend has confronted the reality that things are rapidly getting much worse. This week saw the Shanghai Composite sink 9.0%. Major equities indexes were hit 8.0% in Russia and 5.0% in Brazil (Petrobras down 9%). Financial stocks and levered corporations have been under pressure round the globe. The Russian ruble sank 4.0% this week, increasing y-t-d losses versus the dollar to 7.1%. The Mexican peso declined another 1.8% this week. The Polish zloty slid 2.8% on an S&P downgrade ("Tumbles Most Since 2011"). The South African rand declined 3.0% (down 7.9% y-t-d). The yen added 0.2% this week, increasing 2016 gains to 3.0%. With the yen up almost 4% versus the dollar over the past month, so-called yen "carry trades" are turning increasingly problematic.
Closer to home, the crisis in Puerto Rico continues to spiral out of control. The following is an excerpt from a letter that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew sent to Congress on Friday...
Although there are many ways this crisis could escalate further, it is clear that Puerto Rico is already in the midst of an economic collapse...
Puerto Rico is already in default. It is shifting funds from one creditor to pay another and has stopped payment altogether on several of its debts. As predicted, creditors are filing lawsuits. The Government Development Bank, which provides critical banking and fiscal services to the central government, only avoided depleting its liquidity by halting lending activity and sweeping in additional deposits from other Puerto Rico governmental entities. A large debt payment of $400 million is due on May 1, and a broader set of payments are due at the end of June.
It isn't Michael Snyder from The Economic Collapse Blog that is saying that Puerto Rico is "in the midst of an economic collapse".
That is the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury that is saying it.
Those that have been eagerly anticipating a financial apocalypse are going to get what they have been waiting for.
Right now we are about halfway through January, and this is the worst start to a year for stocks ever. The Dow is down a total of 1,437 points since the beginning of 2016, and more than 15 trillion dollars of stock market wealth has been wiped out globally since last June.
Unfortunately, there are still a lot of people out there that are in denial.
There are a lot of people that still believe that this is just a temporary bump in the road and that things will return to "normal" very soon.
They don't understand that this is just the beginning. What we have seen so far is just the warm up act, and much, much worse is yet to come.
The Looming Collapse - By Scott Huckaby -
http://www.raptureready.com/soap2/huckaby5.html
One doesn't have to be an economist to see that all is not well with the economy. The U.S. national debt is so high that no one believes it will ever be paid off and stock markets are volatile world-wide. The only thing keeping our debt from triggering a melt-down is that most other nations in the world are just as bad or worse in their GDP-to-debt ratios.
Government spending and increasing the money supply which is called "quantitative easing" are seen as the solution to bring us out of the worldwide recession that began in 2008. This has not been working despite the mainstream media narrative that all is well. No amount of statistical gymnastics can hide the fact that record numbers of Americans are unemployed or under-employed.
Quantitative easing has never really worked to end recessions. In times past, the government effectively printing money to increase the money supply appears to have worked because inflation caused the debt to be reduced. Inflation was a painful but effective tool in reducing the national debt because it also meant that people made more money as the demand for labor increased. But this time the demand for labor has not increased, thus keeping wages depressed.
Among the theories given to explain why the demand for labor has not increased is that automation is now replacing jobs faster than new jobs can be created. This may indeed be a factor but a more significant impact is certainly due to the globalization of the world economy. Jobs that used to be done locally are now being outsourced to places where labor is cheaper.
The inflation that usually accompanies the government printing money has not materialized this time. We have had an increase in asset prices such as stocks and real estate but commodity prices led by the price of oil have been depressed. The biggest factor in the depression of commodity prices is due to wages not increasing and it is not possible for wages to increase if there is a reduced demand for labor.
There has never been a time in the history of the world when interest rates have been so low for so long. This is making it harder for governments to employ their quantitative easing strategy which they believe stimulates the economy. It is hard to reduce interest rates on government loans when you are already at zero percent.
When the government is effectively giving money away at zero percent interest, they can no longer just bail-out failed financial institutions. What the European Union is now looking at doing instead is a "bail-in." This is where some percentage of depositor savings is reduced similar to what happened in Cypress. All EU member states have been required to have bail-in legislation on their books beginning this year.
While the European Union will probably not execute their plans to confiscate depositor savings through a bail-in until the next major economic meltdown occurs, some banks there have already begun charging negative interest rates on savings. They are now effectively charging depositors to warehouse their money. This is intended to get depositors to take their money out of the bank and spend it in an effort to stimulate the economy.
Whether negative interest rates works to stimulate the economy or not, it will lead to governments implementing some sort of cashless system in order to have more control. Most transactions are already done digitally out of convenience. A cashless economy sets the stage for the time when all transactions can be micro-managed by the state which is necessary for the mark of the beast that will be implemented during the Tribulation (Revelation 13:16-18).
The European Union is the model for the world coming together as expressed in their motto, "United in diversity." What is being tried to stimulate the economy in Europe will eventually be done worldwide. All that is required is a big enough economic crisis to cause governments to take action.
And such action has generally resulted in them gaining more control over their people. When the problem becomes bigger than national governments can fix by printing more money or confiscating savings, there will be increasing demands for a bail-out by an even higher governmental entity-a more powerful global union of nations.
Every crisis is taking us closer to the global government the Bible says will be in place when the Lord returns. The stage-setting is picking up pace at such a rate that many have theorized there must be a conspiracy of the elite orchestrating developments in order to rule the world. Whether or not there is a human conspiracy at work in the world, there certainly is a spiritual one.
God is removing His restraint from evil to prepare the world for the Tribulation when lawlessness will run its course. This is allowing Satan and his fallen-angel followers to have more influence over the nations of the world.
God is in control of the economy and allows it to flourish or fail in order to serve His purposes. The idea that mankind can control the economy is an illusion that will eventually become apparent to all. But until then, mankind's solution to fix the economy will be to double-down on the flawed policy to seek a bail-out from a higher governmental authority.
This is the dynamic that will eventually give us a global government. This world will experience the ultimate in human control over mankind and Revelation 18 says it will fail spectacularly.
There have always been economic cycles and they are nothing to fear for those who are trusting in the Lord. God promised us in Genesis 8:22:
"While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease" (NKJV).
The best way to prepare for the coming economic meltdown is to apply the principles God has given us in His Word to be good stewards of His blessings. And this includes such things as getting out of debt and investing to lay up treasure in heaven.
The bailout this world sorely needs is for Jesus to return. All the economic pain this world will experience in the next few years will bring mankind to the end of themselves and prepare society for rule by the Lord Himself. But followers of Christ during this Age of Grace will not have to go through the worst of the economic turmoil that will characterize the Tribulation. The best way for people to be prepared for the economic crash described in Revelation 18 is to allow Jesus to be their Savior and Lord now, before the Rapture of the church.
The economy of the Lord is far superior to that which mankind envisions. It is actually encouraging to see the end of mankind's economy foreshadowed when you know it only indicates the kingdom of God on earth is very near.
Come soon Lord Jesus!
The World Economy & The End Times - Belle Ringer - http://www.salvationandsurvival.com/2016/01/the-world-economy-end-times.html
I don't have to tell you that the global economy is in a world of hurt. The news cycles are full of stories of the woes of Wall Street, the devaluation of the Chinese Yuan, and the fears of further oil glut in the Middle East. They are all intertwined to paint a very bleak economic forecast for the Seven Billion+ inhabitants of the planet. And I can't help but see it in terms of my Biblical worldview, and End Times prophecies. But how do the particulars of today's world economy play into the predictions that the Bible makes about Christ's return?
The Bible verse that speaks most clearly to me is Revelation 6:6 ... And I heard what seemed to be a voice from the midst of the four living creatures, saying, A quart of wheat for a denarius [a whole day's wages], and three quarts of barley for a denarius; but do not harm the oil and the wine! What this tells me is that at a time that Jesus calls The Great Tribulation, there will be great financial struggle and famine among the world's poor, while at the same time, there will those who enjoy great wealth. Do we not see the rich getting richer, while more and more of the middle class are falling into poverty; that the chasm between rich and poor is getting wider and deeper?
If, like myself, you are a believer that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God (revelation of Jesus), and that He spoke prophecy into each of the writers of His Word, then it is Jesus Himself who is telling us that this will be the economic picture in the End Times. And what is the common denominator mentioned in Revelation, and is also one of the primary factors controlling the world economy today? It is oil!
Can you see it? Can you discern that oil is the stimulus that is driving the nations of the world into not only a battle for domination of the oil reserves, but into a final showdown and conflict at Megiddo in the Valley of Jezreel? That oil and Armageddon are explicitly linked?
It should be obvious to everyone that oil is the energy-producing resource that every 21st Century nation needs to survive. It should be equally obvious that the Middle East is Oil Central, so to speak, and the sectarian violence we are witnessing in the region has as much to do with controlling that resource as it does with warring religious ideologies. That's why we see the growing presence of Russia and China in the area, and what ultimately drives the foreign policies of all the major nations.
Remember that Chapter 38 in Ezekiel prophecies that the force that instigates the Gog-Magog war will have "an evil thought" to not only "take a spoil", but to turn his hand "upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land"; in other words, Israel. I believe that "spoil" will be oil. As writer, Terry James, so eloquently explains in his article, titled End Times Economy: Forecast of Last-Day Indicators: "It cannot be mere coincidence that the Middle East region is where the planet was most lush--the place where the Garden of Eden was placed. If oil is, as most scientists believe, primarily decayed vegetation and animal matter that has decomposed, then this is the area where we might expect the greatest deposits of the substance we call oil. It must be more than mere coincidence, too, it follows, that this is the general region where all of the petroleum-hungry nations of the world would place intense interest. How much of a stretch is it, then, to believe that the forces of Gog-Magog would one day consider this region a chief target for invasion? And, carrying this logic to biblically prophetic conclusion, is it any wonder that Armageddon, involving most every nation on earth, will meet in this very region to do battle for the great spoil, the liquid black gold beneath the sand of the Middle East?"
Can you see it more clearly now? America played a part in the birth of modern Israel, and we were blessed with new venues of economic markets. Our alliance with Israel and our protection of the infant state, gave the U.S. presence in the region of planet earth with the deepest petroleum reserves. We have also played a role in protecting the royal Saudi family, who held the keys to the most copious amounts of oil in the region. This alliance also assured us that our western economy would continue to flourish, and we could keep the oil spigots open and flowing.
But now there are new players on the block. The recent negotiations with Iran threaten to upset that apple cart, and now Russia is making its presence known in the region. And we cannot dismiss the taste for oil that China's burgeoning industrial economy is demanding. Can you see the nations of the world gathering, just as the Biblical prophecies predict? Can you see that oil could be "the hook in the jaw" that pulls nations out of the north to the Valley of Jezreel (Ezekiel 38:4)? Or that oil could be the impetus for a 200,000,000 man army coming from the East (Revelation 9:14-16)?
It is interesting to watch all the financial experts and their dire projections of an economic world collapse. They are specifically focused on this world and how to avoid the coming breakdown of world banks and global economic institutions; how that will affect the world's financial systems. We, Christians, who are not of this world, see it from a futuristic standpoint. We see the failing world economy as inevitable; as prophetic, and as one more step towards the return of our Lord and Savior and the institution of a prosperous and glorious 1,000-year reign in His presence.
We must get ready ... times are going to be horrendous, and millions will die from famine, pestilence and war. There is no way out of it; the Bible tells me so. But we have just a little ways to go to get out of this corrupted world system and into His magnificent Kingdom. Whatever comes, if we stay focused on Him, it will all be worth it. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!
Revelation 16:14 "For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty."
62 Members of The Elite Have as Much Money as The Poorest 3.6 Billion People On the Entire Planet - By Michael Snyder -
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/62-members-of-the-elite-have-as-much-money-as-the-poorest-3-6-billion-people-on-the-entire-planet
Did you know that the top 1% has more wealth than the rest of the planet combined? And just 62 ultra-wealthy members of the elite have as much money as the poorest 3.5 billion people on the entire planet. These brand new numbers come from a shocking report that was just put out by Oxfam, and they show that income inequality continues to grow at a very rapid pace all over the world. As you will see below, the total wealth of the poorest half of the global population has plunged by 41 percent since 2010 while the wealth of the elite has continued to surge upward. The debt-based financial system that now has the entire planet in its grip funnels wealth to the very top, and the global elite are more than happy to hoard as much of it as they possibly can.
In our world, money is power, and the elite are continually becoming more powerful. The following comes from the Independent, and I think that these numbers truly speak for themselves...
Wealth inequality has grown to the stage where 62 of the world's richest people own as much as the poorest half of humanity combined, according to a new report.
The research, conducted by the charity Oxfam, found that the wealth of the poorest half of the world's population - 3.6 billion people - has fallen by 41 percent, or a trillion US dollars, since 2010.
While this group has become poorer, the wealth of the richest 62 people on the planet has increased by more than half a trillion dollars to $1.76 trillion.
Back in 2010, 388 members of the elite had as much wealth as the poorest half of humanity. But since then that number has been steadily falling and now it is down to just 62. At this pace, Oxfam is projecting that in just a few years a single person will have as much money as the poorest half of the global population combined.
As I mentioned above, a big reason for this trend is the financialization of the global economy. All over the world, governments, businesses and individuals have been trained to binge on debt, and all of this debt is systematically impoverishing us. Whenever we borrow money, we always have to pay back more than we borrow, and this funnels wealth to the very top of the pyramid.
Since the last financial crisis, the total amount of debt in the world has absolutely exploded. At this point it is sitting at more than 200 trillion dollars, and all of that debt enriches the ruling class. The more money they get, the more they are able to impose their will on the rest of us, and that is not a good thing.
You may think that you can change your destiny at the ballot box, but history has shown that this is a rather fruitless exercise. The candidate with the most money almost always wins, and so the elite just buy and sell politicians like trading cards. And most politicians are members of the elite anyway. In the end, it is very rare to see a true "outsider" have any sort of sustained success in the political arena.
Unfortunately for the elite, the massive global financial bubble they have created is beginning to burst, and this could have very serious consequences for them. As USA Today is reporting, many of the elite are in a rather glum mood as they gather in Davos, Switzerland for their yearly confab...
Among the elite 2,500 executives and world leaders slouching toward Davos by train, Mercedes limo and helicopter this year, there is a single, depressing refrain - at least it's not 2008.
There's nothing to focus the mind of the collective corporate aristocracy like a markets crisis, and January 2016 hasn't failed to deliver. While European markets were stable Monday after last week's brutal sell-off, oil continued to fall as Iran prepares to dump 500,000, sanction-free barrels a day on world markets.
I talked about the nightmarish oil crash that we are witnessing in my latest article on The Economic Collapse Blog. This oil crash has pushed markets all over the world into bear market territory, and panic is spreading like wildfire. The following list from Wolf Richter shows just some of the major stock markets that have now fallen more than 20 percent from the peak...
- France: -20.6 percent
- Germany: -23.3 percent
- Sweden: -24.0 percent
- Singapore: -27.0 percent
- Canada: -27.5 percent
- Spain: -28.5 percent
- Hong Kong: -32.7 percent
- Brazil: -37.5 percent
- China (Shanghai Composite): -43.7 percent
- Italy: -45.1 percent
- Saudi Arabia: -50.4 percent
If the damage stopped here, it would still be a major crisis. But at this point there are many analysts that are forecasting that this new crisis will ultimately turn out to be far worse than what we experienced in 2008. One of those analysts is Albert Edwards of Societe Generale...
Albert Edwards, an analyst from french bank Societe Generale, predicts global deflation is going to wipe out 75 percent of the value from the S&P 500.
Edwards' warning comes on the heels of last weeks drastic and ongoing devaluation of the Chinese currency, tanking oil prices, and major stock selloffs throughout the worlds markets.
In his stark investment note to clients Friday, Edwards blamed the present market turbulence on the Federal Reserve and its British and European central bank counterparts for introducing Quantitative Easing (QE) schemes to their markets, which first began the inflation in prices globally.
If Albert Edwards is right and we do see a 75 percent decline of the S&P 500, the global economy will plunge into a full-blown depression. Big financial institutions will implode left and right, and we will experience a "credit crunch" far greater than what we witnessed in 2008 and 2009. The banks that survive won't want to lend to one another or to anyone else, and economic activity will grind to a standstill.
What that will mean for ordinary people is this - millions of jobs will be lost and millions of families will no longer be able to pay their bills. Poverty and homelessness will absolutely explode, and economic despair will be everywhere.
The elite will suffer too, but it is during times of great crisis that the elite make their boldest moves. They love to create order out of chaos, and they love to offer us "solutions" for problems that they originally had a hand in creating.
As bad as things are right now, the truth is that they are about to get a lot worse. And the eventual "solutions" that we will be offered will inevitably result in even more power and more money ending up in their hands.
The game is rigged and the elite are running the show.
But when the wheels of the bus come off this time, will the elite be able to retain control?
Only time will tell...
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