World's economy in a mess. Global recession. Solution? Constitute Indian Ocean Community. United States of Asia can save the globe.

A trader watches a graph showing the fall of the Euro in Paris on Friday.

January 13, 2012

France's credit rating downgraded in latest blow to euro zone

By BARRIE McKENNA
From Saturday's Globe and Mail

S&P also cuts Italy, Spain and six other European countries; Greece debt talks near collapse

The euro zone's worst-case scenario of recession and default is looming larger after a mass debt downgrade of France and several other countries, and stalled Greek debt restructuring talks.
Standard & Poor's stripped France of its prized triple-A rating and slashed the ratings of Italy, Spain and six other European countries Friday, continuing a disturbing pattern of the feared becoming reality in Europe's smouldering debt crisis.
The move Friday crushed nascent hope that the region's debt woes might finally be easing after successful bond auctions by Spain and Italy earlier in the week.
The most immediate problem for the euro zone is that France - its second largest economy - will now face significantly higher borrowing costs just as the region slides into recession.
Equally important, the downgrade makes it more expensive for the European Financial Stability Fund to raise cash because France is the fund's No. 2 backer behind Germany. The EFSF, set up in 2010, is due to raise money in the markets on Tuesday.
S&P said its decision was prompted by the failure of European leaders to adequately deal with "ongoing systemic stresses in the euro zone" at their December summit. Those challenges include tightening credit conditions, rising risk premiums, the slowing economy and an "open and prolonged" dispute among European policy makers on how to tackle their problems, the agency said in a statement.
"The agreement reached has not produced a breakthrough of sufficient size and scope to fully address the euro zone's financial problems," S&P said.
Also downgraded Friday were Austria, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta. Only Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Luxembourg retain triple-A ratings among the euro zone's 17 member countries.
S&P also warned of "reform fatigue" in some European countries, which could stall efforts to improve finances as the continent slips back into recession.
In Greece, negotiations aimed at getting investors to take a voluntary cut on their Greek bond holdings appeared near collapse, raising the probability that the country could soon face a full-scale debt default.
French officials played down the significance of S&P's decision to cut the country's debt rating by a notch to double-A-plus - the same rating as the United States after its own downgrade last summer. Finance Minister François Baroin said it's bad news, but far from devastating.
"It's a reduction of one level, it's the same level as the U.S. It's not a catastrophe," Mr. Baroin told France-2 television.
Eurogroup president Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg defended the actions of euro zone leaders in the face of economic crisis, pointing out that recent moves alleviated tensions in bond and lending markets.
Losing the triple-A rating is also a political problem for French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is already trailing his main rival, Socialist Party candidate François Hollande in the lead-up to the coming presidential election.
As rumours of a possible downgrade circulated Thursday, Mr. Sarkozy urged the French people not to dwell on what the markets and rating agencies are doing.
"Markets and rating agencies exasperate our citizens," he said. "We must take back control of our destiny."
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble likewise said people shouldn't "overrate the assessments of rating agencies." And he suggested that successful bond auctions this week by Spain and Italy are more important harbingers.
But ratings are more than symbolic. Euro zone countries have borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars to finance their debts - much of it overseas. Lower ratings are an indicator of greater risk, prompting investors to demand higher interest rates to hold those bonds.
S&P put 15 European nations on notice in December of possible downgrades.
The yield on France's 10-year government bond rose to 3.1 per cent Friday from 3 per cent earlier in the day. The comparable rate for Italy is 6.6 per cent.
Germany, regarded as the best credit risk in Europe, pays just 1.76 per cent. The yield on U.S. 10-year Treasuries was 1.85 per cent Friday, down 0.08 percentage points.
The euro hit its lowest level in more than a year, while stock markets in Europe, Canada and the U.S. retreated.
Some analysts have speculated that Europe's fiscal woes, if not fixed quickly, could lead to an eventual breakup of the euro zone, triggered by a cascading series of defaults, starting in Greece, and then afflicting other heavily indebted countries.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-news/sp-cuts-frances-triple-a-rating/article2301367/

Jan. 13, 2012

The Economic Collapse

Are You Prepared For The Coming Economic Collapse And The Next Great Depression?

22 Signs That We Are On The Verge Of A Devastating Global Recession

2012 is shaping up to be a very tough year for the global economy.  All over the world there are signs that economic activity is significantly slowing down.  Many of these signs are detailed later on in this article.  But most people don't understand what is happening because they don't put all of the pieces together.  If you just look at one or two pieces of data, it may not seem that impressive.  But when you examine all of the pieces of evidence that we are on the verge of a devastating global recession all at once, it paints a very frightening picture.  Asia is slowing down, Europe is slowing down and there are lots of trouble signs for the U.S. economy.  It has gotten to a point where the global debt crisis is almost ready to boil over, and nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next.  The last global recession was absolutely nightmarish, and we should all hope that we don't see another one like that any time soon.  Unfortunately, things do not look good at this point.

The following are 22 signs that we are on the verge of a devastating global recession....

#1 On Thursday it was announced that U.S. jobless claims had soared to a six-week high.

#2 Hostess Brands, the maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, has filed for bankruptcy protection.

#3 Sears recently announced that somewhere between 100 and 120 Sears and Kmart stores will be closing, and Sears stock has fallen nearly 60% in just the past year.

#4 Over the past 12 months, dozens of prominent retailers have closed stores all over America, and one consulting firm is projecting that there will bemore than 5,000 more store closings in 2012.

#5 Richard Bove, an analyst at Rochdale Securities, is projecting that the global financial industry will lose approximately 150,000 jobs over the next 12 to 18 months.

#6 Investors are pulling money out of the stock market at a rapid pace right now.  In fact, as an article posted on CNBC recently noted, investors pulled more money out of mutual funds than they put into mutual funds for 9 weeks in a row.  Are there some people out there that are quietly repositioning their money for tough times ahead?....

Investors yanked money out of U.S. equity mutual funds for a ninth-consecutive week despite a bullish 2012 outlook from Wall Street and a December rally that’s carried over into the New Year.

#7 There are signs that the Chinese economy is seriously slowing down.  The following comes from a recent article in the Guardian....

Growth had slowed to an annual rate of 1.5% in the second and third quarters of 2011, below the "stall speed" that historically led to recession.

#8 The Bank of Japan says that the economic recovery in that country "has paused".

#9 Manufacturing activity in the euro zone has fallen for five months in a row.

#10 Germany's economy actually contracted during the 4th quarter of 2011.  At this point many economists believe that Germany is already experiencing a recession.

#11 According to a recent article by Bloomberg, it is being projected that the French economy is heading into a recession....

The French economy will shrink this quarter and next, suggesting the nation is in a recession as investment and consumer spending stagnate, national statistics office Insee said.

#12 There are a multitude of statistics that indicate that the UK economy is definitely slowing down.

#13 The credit ratings of Italy, Spain, Portugal, France and Austria all just got downgraded.

#14 It is being reported that the Spanish economy contracted during the 4th quarter of 2011.

#15 Bad loans in Spain recently hit a 17-year high and the unemployment rate is at a 15-year high.

#16 According to a recent article in the Telegraph, the Italian government is forecasting that there will be a recession for the Italian economy in 2012....

The Italian government predicts GDP will contract 0.4pc next year, but many economists fear the figure is optimistic.

"We can say without mincing words that we have already slipped into recession," said Intesa Sanpaolo analyst Paolo Mameli. "We expect GDP to keep contracting for the next 3-4 quarters."

#17 Italy's youth unemployment rate has hit the highest level ever.

#18 The unemployment rate in Greece for those under the age of 24 is now at39 percent.

#19 Greece is already experiencing a full-blown economic depression.  About a third of the country is now living in poverty and extreme medicine shortages are being reported.  Things have gotten so bad that entire families are being ripped apart.  According to the Daily Mail, hundreds of Greek children are being abandoned because the economy has gotten so bad that their parents simply cannot afford to take care of them anymore.  The note that one mother left with her child was absolutely heartbreaking....

One mother, it said, ran away after handing over her two-year-old daughter Natasha.

Four-year-old Anna was found by a teacher clutching a note that read: 'I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her. Please take good care of her. Sorry.'

#20 In Greece, large numbers of people are simply giving up on life.  Sadly, the number of suicides in Greece has increased by 40 percent in just the past year.

#21 In many European countries, the money supply continues to contract rapidly.  The following comes from a recent article in the Telegraph....

Simon Ward from Henderson Global Investors said "narrow" M1 money – which includes cash and overnight deposits, and signals short-term spending plans – shows an alarming split between North and South.

While real M1 deposits are still holding up in the German bloc, the rate of fall over the last six months (annualised) has been 20.7pc in Greece, 16.3pc in Portugal, 11.8pc in Ireland, and 8.1pc in Spain, and 6.7pc in Italy. The pace of decline in Italy has been accelerating, partly due to capital flight. "This rate of contraction is greater than in early 2008 and implies an even deeper recession, both for Italy and the whole periphery," said Mr Ward.

#22 The major industrialized nations of the world must roll over trillions upon trillions of dollars in debt during 2012.  At a time when credit is becoming much tighter, this is going to be quite a challenge.  The following list compiled by Bloomberg shows the amount of debt that some large nations must roll over in 2012....

Japan: 3,000 billion
U.S.: 2,783 billion
Italy: 428 billion
France: 367 billion
Germany: 285 billion
Canada: 221 billion
Brazil: 169 billion
U.K.: 165 billion
China: 121 billion
India: 57 billion
Russia: 13 billion

Keep in mind that those numbers do not include any new borrowing.  Those are just old debts that must be refinanced.

As I mentioned at the top of this article, things do not look good.

The last thing that we need is another devastating global recession.

As I wrote about yesterday, the U.S. economy is in the midst of a nightmarish long-term decline.  The last major global recession helped to significantly accelerate that decline.

So what will happen if this next global recession is worse than the last one?

Sadly, the people that will get hurt the most by another recession will not be the wealthy.

The people that will get hurt the most will be the poor and the middle class.

So what should all of us be doing about this?

We should use the time during this "calm before the storm" to prepare for the hard times that are coming.

As always, let us hope for the best and let us prepare for the worst.

But things certainly do not look promising for the global economy in 2012.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/22-signs-that-we-are-on-the-verge-of-a-devastating-global-recession

UNCONVENTIONAL ECONOMIC WISDOM

The Perils of 2012

Joseph E. Stiglitz

2012-01-12

The Perils of 2012

KOLKATA – The year 2011 will be remembered as the time when many ever-optimistic Americans began to give up hope. President John F. Kennedy once said that a rising tide lifts all boats. But now, in the receding tide, Americans are beginning to see not only that those with taller masts had been lifted far higher, but also that many of the smaller boats had been dashed to pieces in their wake.

In that brief moment when the rising tide was indeed rising, millions of people believed that they might have a fair chance of realizing the “American Dream.” Now those dreams, too, are receding. By 2011, the savings of those who had lost their jobs in 2008 or 2009 had been spent. Unemployment checks had run out. Headlines announcing new hiring – still not enough to keep pace with the number of those who would normally have entered the labor force – meant little to the 50 year olds with little hope of ever holding a job again.

Indeed, middle-aged people who thought that they would be unemployed for a few months have now realized that they were, in fact, forcibly retired. Young people who graduated from college with tens of thousands of dollars of education debt cannot find any jobs at all. People who moved in with friends and relatives have become homeless. Houses bought during the property boom are still on the market or have been sold at a loss. More than seven million American families have lost their homes.

The dark underbelly of the previous decade’s financial boom has been fully exposed in Europe as well. Dithering over Greece and key national governments’ devotion to austerity began to exact a heavy toll last year. Contagion spread to Italy. Spain’s unemployment, which had been near 20% since the beginning of the recession, crept even higher. The unthinkable – the end of the euro – began to seem like a real possibility.

This year is set to be even worse. It is possible, of course, that the United States will solve its political problems and finally adopt the stimulus measures that it needs to bring down unemployment to 6% or 7% (the pre-crisis level of 4% or 5% is too much to hope for). But this is as unlikely as it is that Europe will figure out that austerity alone will not solve its problems.   On the contrary, austerity will only exacerbate the economic slowdown. Without growth, the debt crisis – and the euro crisis – will only worsen. And the long crisis that began with the collapse of the housing bubble in 2007 and the subsequent recession will continue. 

Moreover, the major emerging-market countries, which steered successfully through the storms of 2008 and 2009, may not cope as well with the problems looming on the horizon. Brazil’s growth has already stalled, fueling anxiety among its neighbors in Latin America.

Meanwhile, long-term problems – including climate change and other environmental threats, and increasing inequality in most countries around the world – have not gone away. Some have grown more severe. For example, high unemployment has depressed wages and increased poverty.

The good news is that addressing these long-term problems would actually help to solve the short-term problems. Increased investment to retrofit the economy for global warming would help to stimulate economic activity, growth, and job creation. More progressive taxation, in effect redistributing income from the top to the middle and bottom, would simultaneously reduce inequality and increase employment by boosting total demand. Higher taxes at the top could generate revenues to finance needed public investment, and to provide some social protection for those at the bottom, including the unemployed.

Even without widening the fiscal deficit, such “balanced budget” increases in taxes and spending would lower unemployment and increase output. The worry, however, is that politics and ideology on both sides of the Atlantic, but especially in the US, will not allow any of this to occur. Fixation on the deficit will induce cutbacks in social spending, worsening inequality. Likewise, the enduring attraction of supply-side economics, despite all of the evidence against it (especially in a period in which there is high unemployment), will prevent raising taxes at the top.

Even before the crisis, there was a rebalancing of economic power – in fact, a correction of a 200-year historical anomaly, in which Asia’s share of global GDP fell from nearly 50% to, at one point, below 10%. The pragmatic commitment to growth that one sees in Asia and other emerging markets today stands in contrast to the West’s misguided policies, which, driven by a combination of ideology and vested interests, almost seem to reflect a commitment not to grow.

As a result, global economic rebalancing is likely to accelerate, almost inevitably giving rise to political tensions. With all of the problems confronting the global economy, we will be lucky if these strains do not begin to manifest themselves within the next twelve months.

Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University, a Nobel laureate in economics, and the author of Freefall: Free Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stiglitz147/English