A growing consensus  among economists is that the second wave of Covid-19 has induced a repeat of the lockdowns  of economic activity that sent Q2 metrics into a tailspin. Though the lockdowns currently underway may not exactly match the draconian character of the earlier  shutdowns, they are becoming increasingly severe as the coronavirus infection rate in many European countries threatens to overwhelm their medical systems.

Though several  viable vaccines are on the horizon, it will likely not be until mid to late 2021 that they succeed in terminating the current pandemic. The current reality in terms of economic activity and Covid-19 makes it increasingly clear that the Eurozone, for the most part, will return to recession after the recovery in Q3. This means at least 2 consecutive quarters of negative growth from the Eurozone, in Q4 2020 and Q1 2021.

Inevitably, a double dip recession throughout the Eurozone will  have a significant negative impact on the region’s primary trading and economic partners, notably China and the United States. In addition, the projected double dip recession will further strain sovereign balance sheets, already burdened with unprecedented levels of debt for addressing the recession that occurred in Q2. Adding trillions of euros in public debt, and trillions more, to the balance sheet of the European Central  Bank, points to a growing sovereign debt crisis likely to impact just as the pandemic has receded.

Following the prescription of the U.S. Federal Reserve begun under Ben Bernanke, the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, is about to unleash the monetary torrent that is referred to as quantitative easing. With the Eurozone remaining mired in a sea of economic stagnation, fiscal debt crises and enduring deflation, Draghi  is gearing up the printing presses, boasting that the ECB will succeed where the Eurozone politicians failed.

With a 1.1 trillion euro quantitative easing program about to be launched, which is roughly equivalent to $1.250 billion USD, many in the markets are hoping that the  perceived improvement in American economic metrics  attributed the Fed’s quantitative easing will come to Europe soon.  The massive debts that will never be repaid and the unprecedented distortions created in the U.S. market by those loose monetary policies are at present out of sight. There is such desperation in the Eurozone, amplified by the impotence of the political class, that the ECB is, just as with the Fed in the U.S., the last hope for the European economy.

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The European Banking Authority, in conjunction with the European Central Bank, conducted a stress test of 123 leading banks within the European Union. A total of 24 banks failed the stress tests, which gauges the ability of a bank located within the EU to withstand macroeconomic pressures, which are rapidly accumulating not only in Europe but throughout the global economy. This represents a full 20 percent of all the major banks subjected to the stress test by the EBA and ECB. (http://www.eba.europa.eu/documents/10180/669262/2014+EU-wide+ST-aggregate+results.pdf)

Nine of the banks with failing grades are Italian; three are Greek and another three are Cypriote. Though only one of the banks  on the list of vulnerable banks is Irish (Ireland had previously been afflicted with a major banking crisis, requiring a massive bailout), that institution, Permanent TSB, is one of Ireland’s largest financial institutions. Permanent TSB was found to have a massive €854.8 million hole in its reserves. Overall, the EBA found that the banks surveyed in the stress test were short of 24.6 billion euros in capital reserves–the amount required in their modeling to withstand a three-year recession. This is the equivalent  of 31.17 billion U.S. dollars at current exchange levels.

Since the global economy imploded into systemic crisis in 2008, central banks and regulating authorities in major economies throughout North America and Europe have held periodic stress tests, apparently in an effort to reassure the public in those countries that their banks are in generally good financial condition. There is a suspicion among many that those stress tests are often rigged in a manner designed to present the most favorable indication possible regarding those banking institutions. The fact that this most recent stress tests undertaken by the EBA reveals that 20 percent of the European Union’s major banks are in trouble, and this at a time of economic stagnation throughout Europe, with increasing indications of looming recession, should serve as a warning klaxon on how fragile Europe’s financial health remains a full six years after the onset of the global economic and financial crisis.

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The Eurozone economy is dead in the water, the ill winds of economic recession are blowing and the politicians are dumfounded. Once again, the European Central Bank must step in with radical monetary fixes to cope with the lack of coherent economic and fiscal policy by the sovereigns. With ECB interest rates already at a nominal 0.05 percent–essentially zero interest rate– a  desperate ploy has just been announced.

Mario Draghi, president of the ECB, has made it known that he will now be buying up troubled assets and collateralized debt. The hope is that this will cool off the heat of threatening deflation, while kick-starting the Eurozone economy. If that fails, he will no doubt then resort to quantitative easing.  Stay tuned.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

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As with the U.S., the Eurozone has been relying on the monetary drug injected by the central bank to compensate for the failure of politicians to devise and execute effective economic policy. The drug of monetary stimulus can go only so far, and there is a constant stream of data revealing how weak the Eurozone economy is in reality.

The most recent figures from the Markit’s purchasing managers indexes show a decline in the composite average from 52.5 in August to 52.3 September. This is the lowest PMI monthly result since December of 2013.

Other than the increasingly  ineffective policies of the European Central Bank (ECB), and in the absence of economic leadership from the politicians, the sole hope for the Eurozone is the monetary union’s largest economy, Germany. However, the German economy has experienced a slowdown, and the emerging sanctions and economic boycott war with Russia is bound to impose a serious drag on economic growth.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

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Six years after the onset of the global economic crisis, and despite trillions of euros in added government debt and unprecedented monetary easing by the European Central Bank (ECB), the Eurozone economy is dead in the water. Unemployment remains disastrously high, and the marginal GDP growth  of some of the smaller Eurozone countries was offset by poor data from France and Germany-the two countries comprise two thirds of the Eurozone’s GDP.

Germany’s economic data was especially bad. The largest economy in the monetary union contracted by 0.2 percent  in Q2 of 2014. In the same period, France experienced zero growth, while Italy entered a technical recession. On balance, the debt and money-printing supported economies of Europe stood  at zero GDP growth in the second quarter of 2014. And the worst may be yet to come. The economic sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine crisis has resulted in retaliatory sanctions, which will inevitably hit the Eurozone in Q3 of this year. In addition, there are warning signs of an economic slowdown in China.  There are ill omens ahead for the Eurozone.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

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Continuing a two year trend that has seen the once AAA rating of French sovereign debt reduced, the ratings agency S & P announced it is cutting its rating on government debt from Paris to AA.  This decision flows from the moribund state of the second largest economy in the Eurozone, which is suffering from high unemployment, large public deficits and a failure to engineer strong economic growth.

The government of French President Hollande came to office on a pledge to create new jobs by defying the austerity trends of other Eurozone partners, in part to be financed by higher taxes. The populist message of Hollande, once translated into public policy, has failed to lift the French economy, and notwithstanding the boasts of politicians in Hollande’s administration, S & P clearly sees sovereign debt issued by France as being less credit worthy in the wake of current fiscal and economic policies.

In the meantime, the European Central Bank, which under its president, Mario Draghi, has followed in lockstep with the Fed’s Ben Bernanke in implementing a near zero interest rate policy (ZIRP), has just cuts its interest rate from half a percent to a quarter of a percent. The most recent rate reduction by the ECB, in conjunction with S & P’s lowering of France’s credit rating, demonstrates that the fiscal and economic woes in the Eurozone are far from over. The Eurozone crisis continues.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

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Hillary Clinton Nude

Hillary Clinton Nude

YouTube

HILLARY CLINTON NUDE

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 latest in a rash of credit rating reductions that has ensued since the onset of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis occurred on July 9. One of the three major global credit ratings agencies, Standard & Poor’s, has cut its valuation on Italian government debt. Rome’s credit rating was cut from BBB plus to BBB. In addition to reducing the Italian sovereign debt credit rating by one notch, S & P posted a negative outlook on the Italian fiscal situation.

Italy is one of the so-called PIIGS nations, those entities in the Eurozone most vulnerable to fiscal and economic shocks. Despite the illusion that the European Central Bank has everything under control, Italy-like many other Eurozone nations, remains gripped and economically paralyzed by the ongoing sovereign debt crisis.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

YouTube

Hillary Clinton Nude

Hillary Clinton Nude

YouTube

HILLARY CLINTON NUDE

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.

According to Eurostat, the agency compiling data for the 17-member  European Monetary Union,  unemployment throughout the Eurozone continued to rise, reaching 12.2 percent in April. In the worst afflicted Eurozone economies, the overall unemployment rate is well above 20 percent, with youth unemployment in some cases exceeding 40 percent, such as in Italy.

Even if the Eurozone were to magically transition to high rates of economic growth, it would take years to reduce the level of joblessness to levels that existed prior to the onset of the global economic crisis. However, such a miracle is not in the works. All the leading prognosticators, including the IMF, project tepid  growth at best, with several major economies in the Eurozone remaining in recession. While pressure grows on the ECB (European Central Bank) to engage in more quantitative  easing, the politicians remain impotent in the face of continued economic malaise and stagnation.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

YouTube

Hillary Clinton Nude

Hillary Clinton Nude

YouTube

HILLARY CLINTON NUDE

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.

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.