Global Economic Crisis

At their most recent meeting, the finance ministers representing the 17 countries that comprise the Eurozone, along with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and ECB (European Central Bank), have thus far failed to decide on releasing the next tranche of bailout funds to insolvent Greece. Without the bailout money being released, Athens is fiscally up the creek, without a paddle.

“Greece has done what it had to and what it had committed to doing. Our partners, along with the IMF, also must do what they have undertaken.” an increasingly desperate Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras pleaded.

The austerity measures enacted by Greece have imploded the economy, now entrapped in a frightful economic depression. The debris of the Greek economy has smashed social cohesion and political stability, witnessed by the sharp rise in popularity of the Fascist and neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, which has promised economic salvation through bashing the immigrants they claim are the cause of the economic woes in Greece.

It is looking increasingly likely that the repeated bailouts at the expense of Eurozone taxpayers, especially from Germany, of the insolvent Greek state will run their course sometime in 2013. The odds that Greece will default on its vast and unsustainable public debt, prompting it to leave or be expelled from the Eurozone, are growing.

As the U.S. political establishment confronts its own self-made fiscal cliff, it should view what is transpiring in Greece as an ill omen and not a situation to gloat over. It is only because of the sovereign debt crisis ravaging Europe’s economies that has enabled a reality whereby the U.S. government can borrow more than a trillion dollars a year, accounting for about thirty percent of all federal government expenditures, at record low interest rates. This situation cannot endure indefinitely. If American politicians fail to craft a sensible, sustainable, long-term fiscal consolidation, America will end up in the economic wasteland that is contemporary Greece. As we can all currently observe, such a draconian reality would present the U.S. with the choice of either  crippling austerity measures imposed by the nation’s creditors, or some form of debt default ( including the option that the Federal Reserve engineers massive inflation).

Greece is not only suffering appalling economic devastation. It is also presenting to the world a modern-day national Cassandra, with a prophetic warning that is especially relevant for American policymakers.

WALL STREET KILLS--A CHILLING NOVEL ABOUT WALL STREET GREED GONE MAD

 To view the official trailer YouTube video for “Wall Street Kills,” click image below:

Wall Street Kills-Official Trailer

In a world dominated by high finance, how far would Wall Street go in search of profits? In Sheldon Filger’s terrifying novel about money, sex and murder, Wall Street has no limits. “Wall Street Kills” is the ultimate thriller about greed gone mad. Read “Wall Street Kills” and blow your mind.

 

Economic data released by Eurostat, the statistics office of the Eurozone, indicated that the monetary union collectively entered a recession in Q3 of 2012. As both Q2 and Q3 indicated economic contraction, the Eurozone met the technical definition of a recession for the second time since 2009.

Within the statistics, one will find at best marginal growth within the healthier economies of the monetary union, with the periphery, especially Greece and Spain, experiencing calamitous levels of economic contraction.  Most economists observing the Eurozone project at best tepid growth or stagnation during 2013.

The economic disaster within the Eurozone, driven largely by a malignant sovereign debt crisis of massive proportions, is testimony to the ongoing and destructive character of the global economic crisis that arose in 2008. With Japan also experiencing economic contraction, China reduced growth and the United States tepid growth only made possible by massive (and unsustainable) budget deficits, the outlook for the global economy remains guarded and grim.

WALL STREET KILLS--A CHILLING NOVEL ABOUT WALL STREET GREED GONE MAD

 To view the official trailer YouTube video for “Wall Street Kills,” click image below:

Wall Street Kills-Official Trailer

In a world dominated by high finance, how far would Wall Street go in search of profits? In Sheldon Filger’s terrifying novel about money, sex and murder, Wall Street has no limits. “Wall Street Kills” is the ultimate thriller about greed gone mad. Read “Wall Street Kills” and blow your mind.

 

Already experiencing two decades of economic stagnation and an “L” shaped recession, the Japanese economy contracted at an annual rate of  3.5 percent in Q3 of 2012. Though this is being in part attributed to export shrinkage with China owing to the ongoing offshore territorial dispute, it should be pointed out that Japan’s dismal third quarter GDP data also reveals a contraction in domestic demand.

The third largest economy  in the world appears to be in recession, despite massive annual public deficits and the highest government debt to GDP correlation of any major advanced economy. The  impact of Keynesian economics on Japan, after more than two decades of pump priming, is an increasingly weak and fragile economy, with future options rapidly running out owing to massive public debts and a demographic time bomb calling into question Tokyo’s long-term capacity to service its debt load.

WALL STREET KILLS--A CHILLING NOVEL ABOUT WALL STREET GREED GONE MAD

 To view the official trailer YouTube video for “Wall Street Kills,” click image below:

Wall Street Kills-Official Trailer

In a world dominated by high finance, how far would Wall Street go in search of profits? In Sheldon Filger’s terrifying novel about money, sex and murder, Wall Street has no limits. “Wall Street Kills” is the ultimate thriller about greed gone mad. Read “Wall Street Kills” and blow your mind.

 

The results of America’s 2012 presidential election were barely finalized when the political establishment immediately shifted gears, now focusing on what is being referred to as the nation’s “fiscal cliff.” This dire term involves a convergence of two hour glasses running out of sand. One is expiration of the so-called “Bush tax cuts,” the radical reduction in upper income taxation during the Bush presidency that transformed America’s fiscal balance sheet from questionable surplus (only surplus with fuzzy accounting on future Medicare and Social Security obligations). The other is the automatic cutbacks in federal spending that take effect without a negotiated bipartisan deficit reduction agreement

Washington’s massive structural mega-deficits are unsustainable. However, a radical, unplanned reduction done like cold turkey will crash the economy, resulting in a revenue shortfall  for the government, and the retention of a massive deficit.

How will the politicians in Washington DC behave? Like adults? Possibly, because of market terror at the alterative. However, with the Republican Party very bitter towards President Obama for having the audacity to defeat his GOP challenger, don’t be too hopeful that the GOP will put aside its political agenda for the national interest.

WALL STREET KILLS--A CHILLING NOVEL ABOUT WALL STREET GREED GONE MAD

 To view the official trailer YouTube video for “Wall Street Kills,” click image below:

Wall Street Kills-Official Trailer

In a world dominated by high finance, how far would Wall Street go in search of profits? In Sheldon Filger’s terrifying novel about money, sex and murder, Wall Street has no limits. “Wall Street Kills” is the ultimate thriller about greed gone mad. Read “Wall Street Kills” and blow your mind.

 

The last of several versions of the Eurozone bailout of Greece had a projection that Athens would have its debt to GDP ratio peak at 167 percent. The Greek authorities are now saying (surprise) that this initial estimate was far too rosy. The latest forecast on the Greek debt bubble? It is now projected to hit a peak of 192 percent in 2014.

As for the Eurozone’s previous forecast that the Greek sovereign debt to GDP ratio would decline to  a still high 120 percent in 2020, that is clearly untenable. The Greek crisis is beyond salvaging, and more bailouts merely spread  the contagion throughout the Eurozone, eventually sucking in the strongest economies in the monetary union. But let’s be clear; should Greece leave the Eurozone, as is being increasingly speculated on, such  a policy measure would have its own negativities. Had an orderly exit by Athens from the Eurozone been crafted earlier in the crisis, those repercussions could have been managed. Now the Eurozone politicos have created a situation in which all the remaining options are saturated with dire consequences.

WALL STREET KILLS--A CHILLING NOVEL ABOUT WALL STREET GREED GONE MAD

 To view the official trailer YouTube video for “Wall Street Kills,” click image below:

Wall Street Kills-Official Trailer

In a world dominated by high finance, how far would Wall Street go in search of profits? In Sheldon Filger’s terrifying novel about money, sex and murder, Wall Street has no limits. “Wall Street Kills” is the ultimate thriller about greed gone mad. Read “Wall Street Kills” and blow your mind.