{"id":127494,"date":"2014-07-02T16:26:08","date_gmt":"2014-07-02T16:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=127494"},"modified":"2014-07-02T16:26:35","modified_gmt":"2014-07-02T16:26:35","slug":"18-signs-global-economic-crisis-accelerating-enter-last-half-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/money\/18-signs-global-economic-crisis-accelerating-enter-last-half-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"18 Signs That The Global Economic Crisis Is Accelerating As We Enter The Last Half Of 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Snyder
\nRINF Alternative News<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

A lot of people that I talk to these days want to know \u201cwhen things are going to start happening\u201d. Well, there are certainly some perilous times on the horizon, but all you have to do is open up your eyes and look to see the global economic crisis unfolding. As you will see below, even central bankers are issuing frightening warnings about \u201cdangerous new asset bubbles\u201d and even the World Bank is declaring that \u201cnow is the time to prepare\u201d for the next crisis. Most Americans tend to only care about what is happening in the United States, but the truth is that serious economic trouble is erupting in South America, all across Europe and in Asian powerhouses such as China and Japan. And the endless conflicts in the Middle East could erupt into a major regional war at just about any time. We live in a world that is becoming increasingly unstable, and people need to understand that the period of relative stability that we are enjoying right now is extremely vulnerable and will not last long. The following are 18 signs that the global economic crisis is accelerating as we enter the last half of 2014\u2026<\/p>\n

#1<\/strong>\u00a0The Bank for International Settlements has issued a\u00a0new report<\/a>\u00a0which warns that \u201cdangerous new asset bubbles<\/a>\u201d are forming which could potentially lead to another major financial crisis. Do the central bankers know something that we don\u2019t, or are they just trying to place the blame on someone else for the giant mess that they have created?<\/p>\n

#2<\/strong>\u00a0Argentina has missed\u00a0a $539 million debt payment<\/a>\u00a0and is on the verge of its second major debt default in 13 years.<\/p>\n

#3<\/strong>\u00a0Bulgaria is desperately trying to calm down\u00a0a massive run on the banks<\/a>\u00a0that threatens of spiral out of control.<\/p>\n

#4<\/strong>\u00a0Last month, household loans in the eurozone declined\u00a0at the fastest rate ever recorded<\/a>. Why are European banks holding on to their money so tightly right now?<\/p>\n

#5<\/strong>\u00a0The number of unemployed jobseekers in France has just soared\u00a0to another brand new record high<\/a>.<\/p>\n

#6<\/strong>\u00a0Economies all over Europe are either showing no growth or are shrinking. Just check out what arecent Forbes article<\/a>\u00a0had to say about the matter\u2026<\/p>\n

Italy\u2019s economy shrank by 0.1% in the first three months of 2014, matching the average of the three previous quarters. After expanding 0.6% in Q2 2013, France recorded zero growth. Portugal shrank 0.7%, following positive numbers in the preceding nine months. While figures weren\u2019t available for Greece and Ireland in Q1, neither country is showing progress. Greek GDP dropped 2.5% in the final three months of last year, and Ireland limped ahead at 0.2%.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

#7<\/strong>\u00a0A few days ago it was reported that consumer prices in Japan are rising at the fastest pace\u00a0in 32 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

#8<\/strong>\u00a0Household expenditures in Japan are\u00a0down 8 percent<\/a>\u00a0compared to one year ago.<\/p>\n

#9<\/strong>\u00a0U.S. companies are drowning in massive amounts of debt, but the corporate debt bubble in China is so bad that the amount of corporate debt in China\u00a0has actually now surpassed<\/a>\u00a0the amount of corporate debt in the United States.<\/p>\n

#10<\/strong>\u00a0One Chinese auditor is warning that\u00a0up to 80 billion dollars<\/a>\u00a0worth of loans in China are backed by falsified gold transactions. What will that do to the price of gold and the stability of Chinese financial markets as that mess unwinds?<\/p>\n

#11<\/strong>\u00a0The unemployment rate in Greece is currently sitting at\u00a026.7 percent<\/a>\u00a0and the youth unemployment rate is\u00a056.8 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

#12<\/strong>\u00a067.5 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the people that are unemployed in Greece have been unemployed for over a year.<\/p>\n

#13<\/strong>\u00a0The unemployment rate in the eurozone as a whole is\u00a011.8 percent<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 just a little bit shy of the all-time record of 12.0 percent.<\/p>\n

#14<\/strong>\u00a0The European Central Bank is so desperate to get money moving through the system that it has actually introduced\u00a0negative interest rates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

#15<\/strong>\u00a0The IMF is projecting that there is a\u00a025 percent chance<\/a>\u00a0that the eurozone will slip into deflation by the end of next year.<\/p>\n

#16<\/strong>\u00a0The World Bank is warning that \u201cnow is the time to prepare<\/a>\u201d for the next crisis.<\/p>\n

#17<\/strong>\u00a0The economic conflict between the United States and Russia continues to deepen. This has caused Russia to make a series of moves\u00a0away from the U.S. dollar<\/a>\u00a0and toward other major currencies. This will have serious ramifications for the global financial system as time rolls along.<\/p>\n

#18<\/strong>\u00a0Of course the U.S. economy is struggling right now as well. It shrank at\u00a0a 2.9 percent annual rate<\/a>during the first quarter of 2014, which was much worse than anyone had anticipated.<\/p>\n

But if U.S. economic numbers look a bit better for the second quarter, that doesn\u2019t mean that we are out of the woods.<\/p>\n

As I have stressed so many times, the long-term trends and the long-term balance sheet numbers are far, far more important than the short-term economic numbers.<\/p>\n

For example, if you went to the mall today and spent a thousand dollars on candy and video games, your short-term \u201ceconomic activity\u201d would spike dramatically. But your long-term financial health would take a significant turn for the worse.<\/p>\n

Well, when we are talking about the health of the U.S. economy or the entire global financial system we need to keep the same kinds of considerations in mind.<\/p>\n

As for the United States, whether the level of our debt-fueled short-term economic activity goes up a little bit or down a little bit is not what is truly important.<\/p>\n

Rather, the fact that we are nearly\u00a060 trillion dollars in debt<\/a>\u00a0as a society is what really matters.<\/p>\n

The same thing applies for the globe as a whole. Right now, the citizens of the planet are\u00a0more than 223 trillion dollars in debt<\/a>, and \u201ctoo big to fail\u201d banks around the world have\u00a0at least 700 trillion dollars<\/a>\u00a0of exposure to derivatives.<\/p>\n

So it doesn\u2019t really matter too much whether the short-term economic numbers go up a little bit or down a little bit right now. The whole system is an inherently flawed Ponzi scheme that will inevitably collapse under its own weight.<\/p>\n

Let us hope that this period of relative stability lasts for a while longer. It is a good thing to have time to prepare. But you would have to be absolutely insane to think that the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world is never going to burst.<\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013\u2013-<\/p>\n

A former Washington, D.C., attorney, Michael Snyder runs a number of websites, including:<\/p>\n