Global Economic Crisis

The British economy, still struggling from the aftereffects of the 2008 Global Economic Crisis and financial disaster, now has received another boot  in its ribcage. Moody’s, one of the three major credit rating agencies, has cut its assessment of the UK’s sovereign debt form AAA to  Aa1.

The U.K.’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne,  put a brave face on Moody’s slap in the face of the political managers of the British economy, by telling the media that the credit agency’s downgrade of the nation’s credit rating was “a stark reminder of the debt problems facing our country. Far from weakening our resolve to deliver our economic recovery plan, this decision redoubles it. We will go on delivering the plan that has cut the deficit by a quarter.”

Typical of other policymakers in the advanced economies gripped by a proverbial sovereign debt and economic crisis, Osborne engages in meaningless platitudes and cliches, hoping to restore market confidence shaken by a credit downgrade through the sophistry of political rhetoric. However, a politician’s words cannot on their own transform structural fiscal and economic realities that are driving the global economic crisis and its parallel sovereign debt crisis.

Cutting the deficit by a small portion through austerity measures that have thrown the British economy back into recession, which means the economic growth that is essential for the future servicing of the U.K.s massive sovereign debt, is looking increasingly more forlorn a hope, appears to be a dysfunctional remedy at best. In addition, Moody’s rating cut may impose upward pressure on gilt yields, leading to even higher future budgetary deficits. And, with a new Governor soon to take over as head of the Bank of England, it is not certain that the embattled and befuddled British politicians can rely on the nation’s central bank to again become the lender of last resort through the money printing engendered through quantitative easing.

Moody’s has done more than just kill the U.K.’s AAA credit rating; it is a reminder of how dire the economic and fiscal situation is in Britain, just as it is in the Eurozone, U.S. and Japan.

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 Streetgo 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 latest data released by Eurostat shows that in the final quarter of 2012, the Eurozone area’s combined GDP contracted by 0.6 percent. This follows a previous quarter of negative growth, reflecting the fact that the Eurozone is confronting both a staggering debt crisis and an economic recession simultaneously. The Q4 data shows that even Germany’s  economy, the strongest in the Eurozone, also contracted.

Negative growth will only exacerbate the Eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis. With the worst afflicted economies dependent on massive loans from German taxpayers and the IMF, the continuing negative economic trends demonstrate how improbable the calculations of the monetary union ‘s policymakers are in their gamble that they can miraculously restore economic growth while solving the Eurozone’s debt crisis. The latest Eurostat data confirms the insoluble conundrum confronting the politicians  in the Eurozone.

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.

 

With the Dow Jones having reached 14,000, it can be said that the worst losses on the index since 2008 have been made whole. But does that mean the global economic crisis is over? Hardly, as what we are seeing on Wall Street is totally unconnected to the real economy, American or global, as most economists and experts realize. The Dow Jones rally is a product of financial engineering, as opaque as any mortgage backed security, courtesy of the U.S. Federal Reserve and its chairman, Ben Bernanke.

While the rally on Wall Street has been occurring, unemployment in virtually every advanced economy, including America, has remained at historically high levels, despite unprecedented deficit spending  by governments. With austerity now replacing stimulus as the mantra of policymakers in the United States and Europe, there is no realistic likelihood for any meaningful reduction in the unemployment rate in the U.S., Eurozone and U.K.  in 2013. Currency wars are being waged by desperate governments, as economic strife leads to political unrest and instability, and geopolitical tensions threaten to blow up what remains of an anemic global economic recovery at anytime during the next twelve months. Yet, despite  the dire straits and fragility of the real economy, central bankers worldwide, but especially the Federal Reserve in the United States, have succeeded in raising equity valuations with all the deft  cunning of a snake charmer.

By design, the Fed, spooked over a moribund economy that is saturated with  sovereign debt and enfeebled by incompetent policymakers, has deployed monetary policy for one purpose; to create the mother of all asset bubbles, right on Wall Street.  Fed  Chairman Bernanke has imposed an essentially zero interest rate policy, or ZIRP, for what seems an eternity, with the objective of punishing savers and fixed income investors, and forcing them to plow their money into equities in search of any yield above real inflation, irrespective of risk factors.

The brokers on Wall Street are obviously delighted. But this stock market engineering by Ben Bernanke can only work in the long-term if the real economy recovers. Failing that, there is the old Newtonian law of physics; whatever goes up must surely come back down to earth.

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.