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Posts Tagged ‘international monetary fund’

Asia Economy Contracting for the First Time According to IMF

July 2nd, 2020 Comments off

For the first time in “living memory,” Asia’s economy overall will shrink by at least  1.6% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. The last projection from the IMF  had a forecast of flat growth. The update shows that the IMF sees worsening data impacting all of Asia in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The IMF concedes that no region, including Asia, will be immune from the ruinous impact of the Coronavirus on the global economy.  Yet, though the IMF is predicting a global economic contraction of almost five percent in 2020, it is still forecasting  a V-shape recovery in 2021 in excess of positive five percent.

With Covid-19 running an unpredictable course, with signs of a second-wave already present, it is being excessively optimistic to hope for a speedy economic recovery. In fact, even the IMF states it will take years for the economies of Asia and other regions to fully  recover, in spite of rosy forecasts for 2021.

International Monetary Fund (IMF)Warns Covid-19 Health Crisis Sending Global Economy Into Greatest Collapse Since the Great Depression

April 17th, 2020 Comments off

The IMF has issued a chilling forecast in its just released 2020 World Economic Outlook. According to the report, the world will experience its sharpest downturn in economic activity since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Though the report is projecting a modest recovery in 2021, this is sheer guesswork, as nobody has any idea of the future progression of the health crisis precipitated by the coronavirus.

Dire news emerged from the world’s largest economy in the wake of the sobering IMF report. The Census Bureau reported that retail sales in the United States fell by a staggering 8.7 % in March; this was the steepest decline since the Census Bureau began tracking this data in 1992.

On April 16 the U.S. Labor Department issued its weekly jobless claims report , more than 5.2 million American workers filed new unemployment claims. In a period of only 3-weeks, more than 22 million workers joined the ranks of the unemployed. This eliminates all the employment gains in the American economy over the past decade. And this all occurred in only three-weeks.

Economic and employment data from many other economies, developed and emerging, was equally dismal. This all validates the growing consensus among economists that the global economic crisis created by the unprecedented demand and employment destruction sparked by the covid-19 pandemic will be far worse than the global financial crisis of 2007-08, and may very well rival the Great Depression of the 1930s in its severity.

IMF Cuts Global Growth Projection Amid Growing Fears of Worldwide Recession

January 23rd, 2019 Comments off

Sheldon Filger-blogger for GlobalEconomicCrisis.com

Christine Lagarde, chair of the International Monetary Fund- – IMF- – added to the anxieties of the rich and powerful gathered for the annual pilgrimage to Davos , Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. Cutting the IMF forecast for 2019 from 3.7 % to 3.5 %, she was acknowledging what is already widely known; there are a growing number of indicators that the global economy is headed for a hard landing.

There is growing instability in major economies, for example the Brexit snafu afflicting the UK and the European Union. There is political gridlock in the USA. And then there is China, the economic gorilla in the room,

The trade wars initiated by the Trump  administration  have harmed both American and Chinese economies. But China is facing other forces; a growing level of indebtedness afflicting both public and private companies. The recent data reflecting the sharp drop in official Chinese GDP growth statistics reflect a major slowing down of the Chinese economy.

Unlike the economic crisis of 2008. when the United Sates was the primary trigger, the next major global recession will most likely be unleashed by events in China, now the world’s second largest economy. 

 

IMF Issues Dire Warning On Global Economy

February 25th, 2016 Comments off

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has just released a report warning  that economic growth worldwide is so fragile, policymakers in the top 20 economies, the so-called G20, must immediately prepare contingency plans. With repeated downgrading of its global growth forecasts, and further lowering of its projections likely, the IMF is in effect warning that the world stands on the precipice of a new global recession. It is urging policymakers in major sovereigns to prepare for future fiscal pump priming as a last measure to prevent further demand destruction.

Not surprisingly, the IMF report identifies two primary drivers of the underlying fragility of the global economy: China’s  slowing economic growth combined with turmoil in her equity markets and the collapse of the benchmark price of oil, inflicting massive fiscal turmoil on the world’s leading petroleum exporting nations. These factors have decimated global commodities and equities and have sown panic in financial markets across the globe.

Is this a repeat of the period just before the onset of the global economic and financial crisis of 2008, or perhaps something different, and even more ominous? Time will tell.

 

 

 


 

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China’s Economic Growth Slows To Lowest Level Since 1990

January 20th, 2015 Comments off

China’s National Bureau of Statistics released GDP growth figures for 2014, indicating that the world’s second largest economy grew that year by 7.4 percent (http://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/201501/t20150120_671038.html), below the planned rate of 7.5 percent but exceeding expectations of 7.2 percent. Even if the figures released by Beijing’s NBS are accurate, they reflect a continuing trend of diminishing rates of growth over the past several years, and are the lowest level of GDP growth in 24 years.

But are the official figures on China’s GDP growth believable? Many elements of China’s macroeconomic performance are shrouded in opacity. The architecture of this vast economy  is formulated from a fundamentally contradictory hybrid mix of private sector capitalism and still overwhelming and largely inefficient state controlled sector, especially in heavy industry. Much of China’s growth in the past, impressive as it seems by overall world standards, was based on massive government spending on underutilized infrastructure; the accounts of entire blocks of apartment buildings that remain unoccupied are well known. There are the dangerous property bubbles, early signs of deflation, and rising debt levels in both the public and private arenas, with growing signs of a future explosion in bad debts held by Chinese financial institutions.

Officially, China’s leadership has resorted to what they call the “new normal,” a more sustainable rate of economic growth. The reality is likely a lot more murkier and volatile than the official statistics and pronouncements would indicate.

The clear trend of diminishing rates of GDP growth in China, whether extrapolated from official figures or derived from a more nuanced assessments of China’s economic performance, are already having an effect on the entire global economy. As with the United States, the massive size of the Chinese economy means that lower GDP growth rates create a head wind for the global economy as a whole. It is therefore no surprise that the International Monetary Fund has just revised its forecast of global economic growth downward by the most substantial margin in three years, to 3.5 percent from the 3.8 percent projected only  three months ago by the IMF (http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2015/NEW012015A.htm). This is a harbinger of what lies in store for the global economy as the formerly massive rates of Chinese economic expansion continue to recede.

 

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Hillary Clinton Nude

Hillary Clinton Nude

 

Global Economic Growth Forecast Cut By IMF: Implications Are Sobering

October 27th, 2013 Comments off

While media throughout the world continues to give the impression that the global economic crisis and its related debt and fiscal issues are on the path to recovery, largely  by cherry picking the news, the International Monetary Fund has cut its forecast for 2013. In July, the IMF projected global GDP growth for the current year of 3.2 percent; this has now been cut back to only 2.9 percent, despite the continuation of massive fiscal and monetary stimulus by sovereigns and central banks throughout the world.

For 2014 the IMF now projects global economic growth of 3.6 percent, a reduction from an earlier forecast of 3.8 percent. These reductions come despite the IMF boosting its projection of economic growth in the UK. Contrasting with so-called “green shoots” that some pundits have pointed to since 2009, there continues to be an avalanche of bad economic data throughout the world; supposed economic recovery in one region or country is offset by worsening news elsewhere. In the meantime, central banks throughout the world, and especially in developed countries, continue to flood the globe with unprecedented levels of liquidity, all conjured out of thin air. Without this radical level of monetary easing, the already anemic levels of economic growth, typically substantially below the proportion of fiscal deficits to GDP in many sovereigns, would almost certainly collapse.

According to the IMF, a slowdown in economic growth in major emerging markets, in particular China, Russia, India and Mexico is creating a drag on overall global economic expansion. This seems almost a reversal from the onset of the crisis in 2008, when the United States was the major driver of the global economic and financial crisis and China viewed as the primary savior. The IMF now sees the U.S. as being the sovereign most pivotal for facilitating global economic growth, in the wake of the slowdown in China and other major emerging economies. However, as noted  by the International Monetary Fund, political gridlock in the U.S., especially in relation to the extension of the national debt limit, is a foreboding threat for the entire global economy. Even in the absence of political dysfunction, the IMF chose to reduce its forecast of GDP growth in the American economy.

At present, the IMF projects a meager 1.6 percent growth in the U.S. economy for this year, far below the proportion of America’s GDP devoted to deficit spending. In other words, the amount of money Washington borrows to fund the federal government remains far above the nominal growth in the GDP. In addition, the Federal Reserve continues its policy of quantitative easing unabated, despite periodic hints of “tapering” the money printing.

What the IMF does not elaborate on (but should) is this point; how much longer can major economies like the U.S. engage in historically unprecedented levels of monetary and fiscal stimulus that provides, at best, levels of economic growth so unimpressively marginal? If the best that such levels of public indebtedness and central bank money printing can provide is anemic growth approaching stall speed, the next major financial crisis to hit will likely be beyond the powers of even the most creative Treasury Secretary or central banker to contain.

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

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:

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.

Indian Economy Faces Crisis: From Boom To Bust ?

September 4th, 2013 Comments off

Only a few years ago, India was, along with China, viewed as a sleeping giant that had awoken, at least as far as economic development was concerned. Until recently, annual GDP growth rates were just below double digit level; those rates have now been halved, as investors turn bearish on the Indian economy. In a self-perpetuating cycle of gloom, lack of confidence has led to capital flight, sparking a market-induced devaluation of India’s currency, the rupee. The  collapse of the rupee has in turn sparked a large increase in the country’s energy imports, especially oil.  All those factors have further degraded the Indian economy.

Raghuram Rajan, the new governor of the Reserve Bank of India, is doing what other central bankers have done in the wake of national economic difficulties; he’s attempting to reverse the trends through sweet-talk and optimism. In truth, it is not an option for him to say anything that would further erode confidence by global investors in the Indian economy. However, India faces structural problems that neither monetary policy nor sweet-talk can cope with. Compared with economic rival China, India’s infrastructure is sub-standard, having suffered through chronic underinvestment. It’s manufacturing base lacks the scale and size of China’s plants, being more reliant on smaller industrial establishments that lack competitiveness.

The problem with India’s economy, however, is not only structural; there are profound political obstacles that inhibit growth and scare off investors.  For much of its history following national independence in 1947, India’s political elite, particularly from the dominating Congress Party, have weighed heavily on a socialist model of economic development. Despite reforms that have strengthened the private sector in recent years, old political habits die hard. Such measures as the recent approval in India’s parliament of an expansion of the food subsidy program, which seems like laudable public policy, are actually  counter-intuitive when it comes to arousing confidence among international investors. India’s growing current account deficit is leading to a moratorium on new investment from overseas, which in turn has facilitated the drop in value of the rupee by 20 percent  during the previous two month period.

The combination of the factors outlined above, which interact and exacerbate each other, are creating growing doubts on the future economic potential of the world’s second most populous nation. And it is not only India. All four member nations of the so-called BRIC countries, that artful creation of Goldman Sachs, are to varying degrees stumbling in the performance of their economies.  Yet, it seems only yesterday that the pundits predicted that these four emerging economies would save the world after the onset of the global economic crisis of 2008. Now, as in the early stages of the Eurozone debt crisis, whispers are beginning to be overhead about how it may be necessary for the International Monetary Fund to come to the rescue of the Indian economy.

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:

Hillary Clinton Nude

HILLARY CLINTON NUDE

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:

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.

Eurozone Recession To Continue In 2013: IMF

January 25th, 2013 Comments off

The International Monetary Fund is projecting a continuing contraction of the Eurozone during 2013. According to the IMF’s most current projection, overall the Euro area will see an economic contraction of 0.2 percent, with global growth overall of 3.5 percent due primarily to China and India.

The austerity measures that are being undertaken by the weakest Eurozone nations have led to historically high levels of unemployment and depression-level economic contraction. The weak economic dynamics within the Eurozone periphery have also taken a toll on economic performance among the strongest Eurozone members, including Germany.

With anti-growth austerity measures being ruthlessly imposed by several Eurozone nations most vulnerable to the sovereign debt crisis, including Spain and Greece, it is hard to see how a significant level of real economic growth will be achieved-and without that growth, there is no resolution to the European debt crisis, no matter how many more austerity measures are  imposed on a skeptical public by the 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:

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.

 

photo

Greece Bailout Crisis a Warning for U.S. Politicians Facing the Nation’s Fiscal Cliff

November 22nd, 2012 Comments off

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:

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.

 

photo

IMF Issues Dire Global Economic Forecast

October 10th, 2012 Comments off

The chief economist for the International Monetary fund, Olivier Blanchard,  relayed the annual World Economic Outlook from the global organization at its meeting in Tokyo, which was somber in tone, and dire in its implications. All earlier growth forecast across the board were reduced, including emerging markets as well as developed economies. The current global growth forecast is 3.3 percent in 2013, down from an earlier projection of 3.5 percent.

The most alarming forecast by the IMF is for the Eurozone, which overall will experience zero growth. The major factor for the Eurozone’s flat growth projection is the fiscal consolidation occurring in many Eurozone economies, made essential by the acute sovereign debt crisis afflicting the monetary union, according to the IMF.

The transcending implication from the IMF’s latest forecast: the artificial “recovery” from the global economic crisis, which originated in 2008, is faltering. Furthermore, the supposed recovery was entirely dependent on massive sovereign debt financing, and with the inevitable fiscal consolidation now occurring, those economies are now at stall speed, and ripe for a double-dip recession, which is already occurring in many Eurozone economies.

                 

 

 

 

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:

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.

 

photo