Global Economic Crisis

Over the weekend the highest ranking cadre of inept European Union politicians were gathered in solemn deliberations, as they once again promise the world that the growing sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone will be permanently “solved.” But the issue is no longer only the debt crisis in Greece, or the other PIIGS countries-Portugal, Italy , Ireland and Spain. The unsustainability of the public debts throughout the Eurozone  now have the banking system of Europe on the precipice of disaster. It is likely that many if not most major European banks would fail a real stress tests, not the phony stress tests recently administered.

One of the issues being debated by the European politicians is having the banks accept some degree of loss on their outstanding loans to Greece. The problem is that such a loss would mean transferring the insolvency of Greece to those very banks. The politicians in Europe know that, so they are already discussing how to recapitalize their banks. But with what? The European nations are themselves all heavily indebted. Germany is resisting the call by France to employ the ECB (European Central  Bank) as a printing machine to “lend” euros conjured out of thin air to the European Financial Stability Facility; the EFFS would in turn provide the money to the banks requiring recapitalizing.

While the frenzied talk rages on in Europe, the continent’s banking system is headed for a crisis that may rival the impact that the Lehman Brothers debacle had on the global economy in 2008.

WALL STREET POLICE: GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS

Officer Larry of the NYPD is on his way to Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan to arrest peaceful protesters involved with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Being a public spirited member of the New York Police Department, Officer Larry does remind us that there is a global economic crisis underway that rivals the Great Depression of the 1930s.

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In an earlier blog piece, I reported on the fact that ratings agency Fitch had dumped Madrid’s credit rating. Standard & Poor’s had also cut the Spanish government debt rating. Now Moody’s, the other major credit ratings agency, has joined the parade by dropping Spain’s rating by two notches. Furthermore, Moody’s added that France, currently with a AAA rating, faces acute danger that its rating may be dropped in the future.

The Eurozone debt crisis is clearly not being alleviated by the desperate machinations of the bumbling politicians. The crisis is getting worse, it is spreading, and along with that somber reality goes a rising tide of public anger and protest.  The sovereign debt crisis is currently impacting Europe with dire consequences for the entire global economy.

WALL STREET POLICE: GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS

Officer Larry of the NYPD is on his way to Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan to arrest peaceful protesters involved with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Being a public spirited member of the New York Police Department, Officer Larry does remind us that there is a global economic crisis underway that rivals the Great Depression of the 1930s.

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The architects of globalization never imagined this scenario. A Wall Street banking crisis in the United States creates a global financial crisis, compelling sovereigns across the world to enact a peculiar and paradoxical policy measure; preserve profligate historical profits of masters of the private banking system, while socializing their losses. This policy of saving the banks by moving their losses onto the balance sheets of nation-states creates a global banking crisis, especially in the Eurozone, due to those banks holding loans from countries that went into deep debt to bail out those same banks. Ireland, to take an example, went from budget surplus to catastrophic fiscal deficits solely due to a decision by Dublin’s politicians to guarantee all the liabilities of their formerly privately-owned and relatively unregulated banks.

The latest policy measure is austerity, forcing the taxpayers to cover the costs of the mounting global economic crisis with higher taxes and cutbacks in social services. The paradox is that these measures negate economic growth, ensuring that the public debt cannot be repaid. All these measures are exacerbating the current and worsening global economic crisis.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, which has now gone global with a rising tide of protests throughout the world, reflects a populace that has seen its economic future being dispossessed. Deprived of hope, and with no confidence in the policymakers in government and oligarchs that largely fund and control political parties in most advanced economies, a growing number of desperate people, especially the younger and emerging generation, see protest as their only option.  All these developments feed into each other, leading to a cascading effect of political instability, growing public indebtedness and economic stagnation and contraction. If nothing else, the anti-Wall Street protests are a barometer of an economic and political system in disarray. And perhaps, they are a harbinger of a new age of political unrest and economic misery of prolonged duration.

WALL STREET POLICE: GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS

Officer Larry of the NYPD is on his way to Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan to arrest peaceful protesters involved with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Being a public spirited member of the New York Police Department, Officer Larry does remind us that there is a global economic crisis underway that rivals the Great Depression of the 1930s.

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We have released a short video on YouTube, entitled “Wall Street Police: Global Economic Crisis.” The video ties in the Occupy Wall Street protest movement with the global economic crisis and the role of our website and blog. The link to the video follows:

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The politicians are at it again; another insolvent bank is “rescued,” courtesy of the already indebted European taxpayers. This time it is Dexia that has been deemed  “too big to fail.”  The component of the bank that conducts retail transactions in Belgium will be nationalized, with a payment from public funds of 4 billion euros to the parent. Furthermore, Dexia will receive a 90 billion euro guarantee from the European politicians as a backstop against any further liquidity problems.

More bailouts for insolvent banks, and from French president Sarkozy and German chancellor Merkel more assurances that the “brilliant” eurozone politicians won’t let Greece go under, or the European monetary union, for that matter. Of course, Dexia is not the only European bank in deep distress. That is what the Greek debt crisis is really all about; how to avoid an implosion of much of Europe’s banking system due to bad Greek debt corroding the balance sheets of the  continent’s banks. Stay tuned; more examples of incompetent European politicians charging to the rescue are on the way.

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More developments on the Eurozone sovereign debt credit ratings front. Fitch, one of the big three credit ratings agencies, lowered its rating on Spanish government debt by two notches, from AA plus to AA minus. As recently as 2010, Fitch rating Madrid’s debt at AAA.  This credit rating cut follows on the heels of the decision by Moody’s to drop Italy’s credit rating two levels.

With the sovereign debt crisis in Europe cascading out of control, and a severe Eurozone banking crisis now developing, one has to be obtuse to believe that the global financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 has been “resolved.” Sovereign credit ratings are dropping with monotonous regularity, and a growing cadre of economists are suggesting that the Eurozone, U.K. and U.S. are already in the midst of a double-dip recession.

With negative economic growth and growing public debt to GDP ratios, how are these  nations going to resolve their sovereign debt crisis?

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As the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis worsens (joined by the U.S.A. and U.K.), the ratings agencies are at it again, with their lagging indicator of choice; the credit worthiness downgrade. This time, Italy got hammered. Moody’s cut the Italian credit rating by three levels, from A2 to Aa2. That is a lower rating than Moody’s rates the credit worthiness of the Baltic republic of Estonia.

According to Moody’s, “the negative outlook reflects ongoing economic and financial risks in Italy and in the euro area. The uncertain market environment and the risk of further deterioration in investor sentiment could constrain the country’s access to the public debt markets.”

The downgrade of Italy’s public debt will translate into widening spreads on Rome’s government bonds, making it even harder to service the multi-trillion dollar public debt accumulated by successive Italian governments. This all happens as the inept European politicians still clamor over another ill-fated effort to “ring-fence” the Greek debt crisis, pretending that is has not yet spread to other PIIGS countries, including Italy. The Moody’s downgrade is more concrete evidence that policymakers in Europe are totally disconnected from economic, financial and fiscal reality.

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For about two weeks, a seemingly spontaneous protest movement has evolved in the financial district of New York, dubbing itself the “Occupy Wall Street Movement.” Supposedly leaderless, there seems to be a core of ideologically committed individuals utilizing social media to empower a protest movement aimed squarely at the financial oligarchy that dominates the American political establishment, and particularly its economic and fiscal policymaking. The organizers of this self-described “leaderless” movement openly state that their methods are inspired by the protest movement of the Arab Spring.

On Saturday, October 1 more than 700 protesters were arrested by the New York Police Department. Previously, the NYPD had been accused by not only the protesters but media observers of engaging in brutality and unwarranted violence against peaceful protesters.  It is not likely that the mass arrests will attenuate these protests; the opposite actually seems to be the case.

Why is the “Occupy Wall Street Movement” protesting in Manhattan’s financial district? The website of the movement states:

“Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that we are the 99 percent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 percent.”

While it is too early to determine the future course of this movement, and whether or not it is a flash in the pan or a self-sustaining phenomenon that could lead to a full-scale national, revolutionary mass protest movement, I think the following observation is in order. The arrest of 700 plus protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge in the brief period of an afternoon is not an everyday occurrence  in the United States. The fact that so many middle class and especially younger people are out on the streets openly railing against America’s financial oligarchy is at the very least a concrete manifestation that in the economic depression that has swept the land, the emerging generation of Americans has lost faith in the country’s politicians, feels alienated from the political culture and is increasingly hostile to those it perceives as the wire-pullers of the nation’s economic and political life and dispossessors of the future for the vast majority of Americans. Though the movement describes itself as leaderless, should a leadership emerge this movement has the potential to grow and morph into a revolutionary form of resistance to the ruling circles of contemporary America. If that happens, based on the police response to date, will those who dominate decision-making in America  unleash repression to suppress this movement? Time will tell, but as America’s economic situation grows worse and President Barack Obama’s mantra of hope and change becomes increasingly dysfunctional and irrelevant, the potential for massive social unrest in the United States grows and may eventually reach a point of critical mass, leading to unforeseen but potentially radical consequences.

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Countless times since the emergence of the Greek sovereign debt crisis, followed in quick succession by the debt crises of other unfortunate members of the PIIGS fraternity on the periphery of the Eurozone, the European politicians have boasted that they have come up with a solution and have licked the problem. Not so long ago, French president Nicolas Sarkozy boasted about how the bond vigilantes should never bet against the euro. And yet, after having “solved” the Greek debt disaster, these same bumbling politicians are soon back in the limelight, again promising that this time they have cobbled up a solution that will really work.

We are now at it again. As Greece stands on the verge of default on her public debt, the Eurozone politicos and the IMF technocrats are supposedly in deep conversation about a really big solution to the Greek debt crisis which will really work this time. Based not on hard fact, but simply on rumors and a heavy dose of hope and prayer, stock markets across the globe are again rallying. As the markets soar, it is clear that this exuberance is based solely on metaphysics, and not on even a shred of hard, objective analysis. Even the rumors point in that direction, as the suggestion that the Eurozone, which is fundamentally insolvent, can borrow the equivalent of two trillion euros, nearly four times the size of America’s TARP of 2008, to bail out the banks that will be hurt by a 50 percent write-off of Greek public debts, is both sublime and ridiculous. The Greek debt crisis is also Greek tragedy, with a heavy complement of comedy added, courtesy of Europe’s inept political leaders.

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The global economic crisis that erupted in 2008, and was supposedly “cured” by the massive public debts incurred by the policymakers, is apparently evolving into a terminal tailspin. A growing number of reputable economists, including Nouriel Roubini, are frankly stating that advanced economies, in particular the United States, the Eurozone countries and the United Kingdom, have entered a double-dip recession. The economic outlook is so bleak that even establishment institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, and to a lesser extent the U.S. Federal Reserve, are candidly acknowledging the dire state of the global economy and the precariousness of its financial architecture. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was forced prematurely to hint at some level of policy intervention; the result, the so-called “Operation Twist,” a macabre arrangement whereby the Federal Reserve’s short-term purchases of U.S. Treasuries are swapped for long-term government debt instruments. The resulting plunge in equity values demonstrates that the market is no longer easily fooled by Bernanke and his clowns.

In a starkly candid statement, the new managing director of the IMF said that the world’s economy was entering a “dangerous place.” Given that the leaders of major global economic bodies do not seek to erode market confidence during turbulent economic times, it must be surmised that Christine Lagarde would not have issued such a pronouncement as the leader of the IMF unless the data she is privy to shows that things are actually much worse than what is being publicly discussed.

Will my prediction of economic catastrophe in 2012 hold true? Based on current developments and increasingly grim talk by economists and policymakers such as the IMF’s managing director, I think the chances that I am wrong are weaker than the likelihood that my forecast is correct.

 

                 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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