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Prophets Of Doom: 12 Shocking Quotes From Insiders About The Horrific Economic Crisis That Is Almost Here

By Mac Slavo

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com

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We are getting so close to a financial collapse in Europe that you can almost hear the debt bubbles popping.  All across the western world, governments and major banks are rapidly becoming insolvent.  So far, the powers that be are keeping all of the balls in the air by throwing around lots of bailout money.  But now the political will for more bailouts is drying up and the number of troubled entities seems to grow by the day.  Right now the western world is facing a debt crisis that is absolutely unprecedented in world history.  Europe has had a tremendously difficult time just trying to keep Greece afloat, and several much larger European countries are now on the verge of a major financial crisis.  In addition, there is a growing number of very large financial institutions all over the western world that are also rapidly approaching a day of reckoning.  The global financial system is a sea or red ink, and when we get to the point where there are hundreds of ships going under how is it going to be possible to bail all of them out?  The quotes that you are about to read show that quite a few top financial and political insiders know that things cannot hold together much longer and that a horrific economic crisis is coming.  We built the global financial system on a foundation of debt, leverage and risk and now this house of cards that we have created is about to come tumbling down.

A lot of people in politics and in the financial world know what is about to happen.  Once in a while they will even be quite candid about it with the media.

As I have written about previously, Europe is on the verge of a financial collapse.  If things go really badly, things could totally fall apart in a few weeks.  But more likely it will be a few more months until the juggling act ends.

Right now, the banking system in Europe is coming apart at the seams.  Because the global financial system is so interconnected today, when major European banks start to fail it is going to have a cascading effect across the United States and Asia as well.

The financial crisis of 2008 plunged us into the deepest recession since the Great Depression.

The next financial crisis could potentially hit the world even harder.

The following are 12 shocking quotes from insiders that are warning about the horrific economic crisis that is almost here....

#1 George Soros: "Financial markets are driving the world towards another Great Depression with incalculable political consequences. The authorities, particularly in Europe, have lost control of the situation."

#2 PIMCO CEO Mohammed El-Erian: "These are all signs of an institutional run on French banks. If it persists, the banks would have no choice but to delever their balance sheets in a very drastic and disorderly fashion. Retail depositors would get edgy and be tempted to follow trading and institutional clients through the exit doors. Europe would thus be thrown into a full-blown banking crisis that aggravates the sovereign debt trap, renders certain another economic recession, and significantly worsens the outlook for the global economy."

#3 Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy, global head of securities services at UniCredit SpA (Italy's largest bank): "The only remaining question is how many days the hopeless rearguard action of European governments and the European Central Bank can keep up Greece’s spirits."

#4 Stefan Homburg, the head of Germany's Institute for Public Finance: "The euro is nearing its ugly end. A collapse of monetary union now appears unavoidable."

#5 EU Parliament Member Nigel Farage: "I think the worst in the financial system is yet to come, a possible cataclysm and if that happens the gold price could go (higher) to a number that we simply cannot, at this moment, even imagine."

#6 Carl Weinberg, the chief economist at High Frequency Economics: "At this point, our base case is that Greece will default within weeks."

#7 Goldman Sachs strategist Alan Brazil: "Solving a debt problem with more debt has not solved the underlying problem. In the US, Treasury debt growth financed the US consumer but has not had enough of an impact on job growth. Can the US continue to depreciate the world’s base currency?"

#8 International Labour Organization director general Juan Somavia recently stated that total unemployment could "increase by some 20m to a total of 40m in G20 countries" by the end of 2012.

#9 Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackerman: "It is an open secret that numerous European banks would not survive having to revalue sovereign debt held on the banking book at market levels."

#10 Alastair Newton, a strategist for Nomura Securities in London: "We believe that we are just about to enter a critical period for the eurozone and that the threat of some sort of break-up between now and year-end is greater than it has been at any time since the start of the crisis"

#11 Ann Barnhardt, head of Barnhardt Capital Management, Inc.: "It's over. There is no coming back from this. The only thing that can happen is a total and complete collapse of EVERYTHING we now know, and humanity starts from scratch. And if you think that this collapse is going to play out without one hell of a big hot war, you are sadly, sadly mistaken."

#12 Lakshman Achuthan of ECRI: "When I call a recession...that means that process is starting to feed on itself, which means that you can yell and scream and you can write a big check, but it's not going to stop."

*****

In my opinion, the epicenter of the "next wave" of the financial collapse is going to be in Europe.  But that does not mean that the United States is going to be okay.  The reality is that the United States never recovered from the last recession and there are already a lot of signs that we are getting ready to enter another major recession.  A major financial collapse in Europe would just accelerate our plunge into a new economic crisis.

If you want to read something that will really freak you out, you should check out what Dr. Philippa Malmgren is saying.  Dr. Philippa Malmgren is the President and founder of Principalis Asset Management.  She is also a former member of the Bush economic team. You can find her bio right here.

Malmgren is claiming that Germany is seriously considering bringing back the Deutschmark.  In fact, she claims that Germany is very busy printing new currency up.  In a list of things that we could see happen over the next few months, she included the following....

"The Germans announce they are re-introducing the Deutschmark. They have already ordered the new currency and asked that the printers hurry up."

This is quite a claim for someone to be making.  You would think that someone that used to work in the White House would not make such a claim unless it was based on something solid.

If Germany did decide to leave the euro, you would see an implosion of the euro that would be truly historic.

But as I have written about previously, it should not surprise anyone that the end of the euro is being talked about because the euro simply does not work.

The only way that the euro would have had a chance of working is if all of the governments using the euro would have kept debt levels very low.

Unfortunately, the financial systems of the western world are designed to push governments into high levels of debt.

The truth is that the euro was doomed from the very beginning.

Now we are approaching a day of reckoning.  We have been living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, but the bubble is ending.  There are several ways that the powers that be could handle this, but all of them will lead to greater financial instability.

In the end, we will see that the debt-fueled prosperity that the western world has been enjoying for decades was just an illusion.

Debt is a very cruel master.  It will almost always bring more pain and suffering than you anticipated.

It is easy to get into debt, but it can be very difficult to get out of debt.

There is no way that the western world can unwind this debt spiral easily.

The only way that another massive economic crisis can be put off for even a little while would be for the powers that be to "kick the can down the road" a little farther by creating even more debt.

But in the end, you can never solve a debt problem with more debt.

The next several years are going to be an incredibly clear illustration of why debt is bad.

When the dominoes start to fall, we are going to witness a financial avalanche which is going to destroy the finances of millions of people.

You might want to try to get out of the way while you still can.

Winter Reads

Autumn is now upon us, and with that comes the sudden approach of winter.  Time to hunker down to some good reads.  Here is a list of some of the books I read last winter that you might find interesting – at least they will give you a clue of how we have gotten into the mess that we are in today:

1.  10 Books that Screwed up the World:  And 5 Others That Didn’t Help, by Benjamin Wiker.

With a title like that, this book BEGS to be read.  Who can resist picking up a title like that?

2.  Liberal Fascism:  The Secret History of the American Left, by Jonah Goldberg.

A very good book that provides some historical perspective on the left, the kind they would rather you didn’t find out about.  All critiques of this book have been ad hominem attacks against the author.  The left can’t debate the facts, so as usual they try to destroy the messenger.

3.  The Return of the Great Depression, by Vox Day.

A very readable book about our current economy that is actually interesting.  Vox Day is also one of the few people that predicted the mess we are currently in.

4.  The Secrets of the Federal Reserve, by Eustace Mullins.

This one will tick you off.  We have been lied to about the “Federal” reserve since its inception.  There is nothing “Federal” about it.  It is a private corporation that controls your money.  This book exposes the true history of this powerful corporation.

5.  The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), by Robert Spencer

O.K., as an admission I have actually read the Koran twice.  So while not an expert, I know what it actually says.  This is another book that the critics don’t refute but engage in more ad hominem attacks.

I picked up this book after a co-worker was telling me about his special forces neighbor who has been training our “allies” in various Islamic countries.  My friend stated what I was thinking, “why in the green God’s world are we training the enemy in advanced fighting techniques?”  Sadly, I fear those in power have fallen prey to the politically correct mantra that Islam is a religion of peace.

If you want to know more about the true enemy we face, read the Koran, and read this book.

I believe most if not all of these books are available from Amazon in the Kindle format, which makes them even cheaper and handier.

Are you reading anything particularly interesting?  I’m always up for a good read and would love to hear from you.

Loss

The last few days have been ones of sadness.  This past week a co-worker was killed in a river rafting accident, a co-workers dad passed away, and a former co-workers wife passed away from a major heart attack.   In addition to all this, a local officer for a small department was killed in an off duty motorcycle crash.

Taking it all in is impossible.  My thoughts have been with the families of those that are gone and feelings of inadequacy to comfort those left behind.

As they say, life goes on.  It just seems a little lonelier now.

Biff

Some things just rankle me, and I go out of my way not to get rankled.  This is why I seldom watch the news, preferring written text and substance over flash and smilin’ white teeth newscasters.

So there I was checking my Facebook page when a post rankled me.  The fact that I am home with a major head cold and I am very cranky didn’t help.   The post about “cops” shutting down a lemonade stand didn’t at first get me fired up even though that is stupid in and of itself, it was the responses.  Yep, those dang cops cruise around just looking for lemonade stands to shut down.  Not.

Every time I see one of these stories, and admittedly their have been a lot of them lately, whether it be lemonade stands, crosses in peoples yards, bible studies in peoples home, etc; the writer always blames the “cops” for shutting them down, making them remove them or not allowing them to assemble.

Newsflash:  It aint the cops.  It is you.  Yep, you heard me right.  It is you whether by action or inaction.  The Police do not make the laws.  You do by electing representatives to make them for you.  Or you don’t vote an in so doing you have given them carte blanche to do whatever they want.

I know of no Police Officers who revel in the thought of shutting down some 9 years olds lemonade stand.    I would be willing to bet that the Police Officers had probably driven by this criminal enterprise (lemonade stand) several times before someone called and complained, forcing them to reluctantly “do something.”

So here is how the "system" really works:

Biff decides to run for office, say as a City Councilman.  Not so he can serve the public mind you, but rather so he can serve himself for some interest that you the voter never finds out about.  Sorry boys and girls, these folks are not altruistic.  That is a fairy tale.

Biff panhandles around for campaign contributions to help him get elected.  He approaches Bob who owns the Burger Barn.  Bob is all to happy to support Biff, as Biff has promised Bob that with that campaign contribution grease, if elected he will look into certain city ordinances that cost Bob money he would rather not pay.

Biff gets elected and all is well.  Until one day that Bob drives past little Billy’s house notices that Billy is selling lemonade for 25 cents a glass at a stand set up on the sidewalk.  Biff doesn’t want to lower the price of the lemonade he sells at the Burger Barn for $1.25 to be competitive with Billy.  So this same paper bag filled with bovine fecal material, which preaches to anyone who will listen to him about free enterprise and capitalism ad nausea, calls up Biff.  He reminds Biff of that juicy campaign contribution – not coming right out and telling Biff that he owes him, but Biff gets the memo.

Bob tells Biff about Billy, and how Billy (who is actually practicing free enterprise and capitalism) is hurting lemonade sales at Bob’s Burger Barn.  Bob tells Biff how dangerous it is for children to be selling anything that close to the roadside.  Someone is likely to get hurt.  So in the interest to public safety, Bob proposes that Biff scratch out a city ordinance prohibiting lemonade stands within 100 feet of the roadside.

Biff wanting to keep the payola rolling in takes his proposed ordinance to the city council.  He talks it up as a safety issue to "protect the children." Who in their right mind can be against the safety of children right?

The council overwhelmingly approves the ordinance and everyone is happy.  A few weeks go by and Bob sees that the lemonade stand of Billy’s is still operating.  Worse, he notices a local Gendarme purchasing lemonade and chatting with the lad.  Horrors.

Bob then calls Biff, who calls Bloviate, the Chief of Police.  Biff reminds Bloviate that he took an oath to enforce the laws of the City and that he is responsible for the safety of the public. 

So Bloviate sends some of his officers down to Billy’s lemonade stand to explain to Billy that his lemonade stand is violating a city ordinance, and that if wants to stay in business he has to move his stand back 100 feet.  Billy’s dad is understandably upset and explains to the officers that if Billy did that his stand would be in the back yard not visible to anyone and no one would buy the lemonade.

Billy’s dad calls the press, who dutifully reports the actions of the jack booted local police.  Billy’s out of business; the police feel like idiots for upholding their oath; the City Council is happy because they can tell their constituents that they are all about public safety and then question the "actions of the police"; the press gets a story that sells; the public is outraged at the police; Biff is happy because he can continue to receive Bob’s campaign contribution, and Bob is the biggest winner of all as he can continue to charge the residents whatever he thinks he can get away with for his lemonade without the worry of a little free market competition.

If reading about a little boy getting his lemonade stand shut down by the cops upsets you, or if reading about a little old lady who is fined for having a cross in her yard makes your blood boil, do me a favor; stop electing Biffs.  The “cops” are on your side.

Comments?

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