Infinite Unknown

The fake “recovery” was nice while it lasted, says famous apocalyptic forecaster Gerald Celente, founder of the Trends Research Institute. But now the fun’s over, and we’re headed for what Celente describes as the “Greatest Depression.”

Specifically, the always startling Celente says the country is headed for rising unemployment, poverty, and violent class warfare as the government efforts to keep the economy going begin to fail.

The crux of the problem, Celente argues, is that the middle class has been wiped out. America used to be a land of opportunity for all, where hard-working people could build their own small businesses in their own communities and live prosperous and fulfilling lives. But now a collusion of state and corporate interests that Celente describes as “fascism” have conspired to help only the biggest companies and the richest Americans. This has put a shocking amount of the country’s wealth in the hands of a privileged few and left the rest of the country to subsist on chicken-feed wages and low job satisfaction as Wal-Mart “associates” — or worse.

Continue reading »

Tags: Depression, Economy, Gerald Celente, Global News, Government, Great Depression, Obama administration, Politics, Recession, U.S., Unemployment

Highly recommended reading.

The Greatest Depression is here.

When Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke admits to seeing an “unusually uncertain” economy ahead, it’s pretty terrifying to imagine what he’s really thinking. What John Williams envisions-and he’s by no means looking to the far horizon-is a systemic collapse, a hyperinflationary great depression and the cessation of normal commerce. Despite that bleak outlook, however, when the economist and editor of ShadowStats.com sat down for this exclusive Energy Report interview, he also had some good news.

The Energy Report: A few months back, John, you said, “if you strangle liquidity you always contract an economy and deliberately or not, liquidity is being strangled, resulting in sharp declines in consumer credit, commercial and industrial loans.” Does this mean it would spur more economic growth if banks actually started lending?

John Williams: It sure wouldn’t hurt. We’re still seeing contractions in liquidity, and that’s adjusted for inflation. In real terms, M3 money supply is down almost 8% year-over-year. It’s the sharpest fall in the post -World War II era. It’s not so much the depth of the decline in the liquidity or the duration, but the fact that the liquidity turns negative year-over-year that signals the economy turning down.

We had the signal in December of 2009 indicating intensification of the downturn, in this case, within six to nine months. We’re in that timeframe now and see softening numbers. People are talking about a weaker economy. Even Mr. Bernanke has described the economy as “unusually uncertain” in terms of its outlook. Wording like that from the Fed is a pretty good indication that something’s afoot. Continue reading »

Tags: Bankruptcy, Barack Obama, Depression, Dollar, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, Government, Great Depression, Healthcare, Hyperinflation, Inflation, John Williams, Medicare, Obama administration, Politics, Preparedness, Recession, Social Security, Stock Market, U.S., Unemployment, Weimar Republic

There is no recovery! This is the Greatest Depression.

- US: Food stamp Use Hit Record 40.8 Million in May

• American firms shed 131,000 jobs in July

• UK thinktank warns British ‘depression’ will last until 2012

Job seekers speak with recruiters during a career fair in Chicago but there are fears that a recovery in the US economy will not mean a revival in employment (Getty Images)

Employers in the US shed twice as many jobs as expected in July, adding to fears that the recovery in the world’s largest economy will not see a revival in employment.

The dismal US job figures came as the National Institute of Economic and Social Research predicted a protracted depression for the UK economy.

Across the Atlantic talk of a double-dip recession was revived when the government revealed 131,000 jobs were lost last month. That dwarfed forecasts for a fall of 65,000. June’s drop was also revised to a far steeper 221,000 from 125,000. Continue reading »

Tags: Barack Obama, Depression, Economy, Government, Obama administration, Politics, Recession, U.K., U.S., Unemployment

Chris Etherington, chief executive of wholesaler P&H, said: “I think this could be the beginning of the double-dip recession. This is really scary stuff.”

Again: This is the Greatest Depression! Prepare yourself now.

See also: Bank of England’s Mervyn King Warns Over High Inflation

The cost of food is likely to jump by up to 10 per cent before Christmas after dry weather drastically reduced the amount of winter feed that farmers could harvest, experts said.

Wheat: expensive. (Getty Images)

The price of milk, cheese, chicken, beef and pork and associated products are all expected to rise because the industry has been hit by soaring animal feed prices, a shortage of silage and poor harvests.

Food inflation is closely linked to overall inflation and some in the industry have warned it could push the economy towards a “double-dip” recession.

BOCM Pauls, Britain’s biggest animal feed supplier, has reported a 20 per cent increase in the price of raw material feed on last year

The cost of wheat used as animal feed has also jumped by 30 per cent.

The company warned that the price at which it sells feed to dairy, poultry, beef and pig farmers would have to increase by the same amount over the next three months, trade magazine The Grocer said.

It is possible that such a margin could be passed on to consumers, however, it is unlikely to be passed on in full. Instead, prices are likely to go up while producers’ and retailers’ profit margins are also squeezed.

The National Farmers’ Union said the dry weather had added to its members’ problems by slashing the yields of silage for winter feed by up to 50 per cent.

Food producers are already suffering from the high cost of common ingredients such as palm oil, cocoa and soya oil, which have risen by 39 per cent, 23 per cent and 14 per cent respectively since last year, according to Mintec figures.

Continue reading »

Tags: Economy, Food, Food Prices, Global News, Inflation, Recession, U.K.

Six successive quarters of negative economic growth from spring 2008 until autumn 2009 were the toughest for the economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s

The UK recession was even deeper than first thought.

The deepest recession in Britain’s post-war history was even more severe than previously feared, the government said today.

Fresh information collected by the Office for National Statistics showed that the peak to trough decline in output was 6.4% of gross domestic product rather than the original 6.2% estimate.

The new figures confirmed that the six successive quarters of negative growth from spring 2008 until autumn 2009 were the toughest for the economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s, harsher even than the slump of the early 1980s. Continue reading »

Tags: Economy, Government, Politics, Recession, U.K.

This is the Greatest Depression.

The US workforce shrank by 652,000 in June, one of the sharpest contractions ever. The rate of hourly earnings fell 0.1pc. Wages are flirting with deflation.

People queue for a job fair in New York. The share of the US working-age population with jobs in June fell from 58.7pc to 58.5pc. The ratio was 63pc three years ago. Photo: EPA

“The economy is still in the gravitational pull of the Great Recession,” said Robert Reich, former US labour secretary. “All the booster rockets for getting us beyond it are failing.”

“Home sales are down. Retail sales are down. Factory orders in May suffered their biggest tumble since March of last year. So what are we doing about it? Less than nothing,” he said.

California is tightening faster than Greece. State workers have seen a 14pc fall in earnings this year due to forced furloughs. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is cutting pay for 200,000 state workers to the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to cover his $19bn (£15bn) deficit.

Can Illinois be far behind? The state has a deficit of $12bn and is $5bn in arrears to schools, nursing homes, child care centres, and prisons. “It is getting worse every single day,” said state comptroller Daniel Hynes. “We are not paying bills for absolutely essential services. That is obscene.”

Roughly a million Americans have dropped out of the jobs market altogether over the past two months. That is the only reason why the headline unemployment rate is not exploding to a post-war high.

Let us be honest. The US is still trapped in depression a full 18 months into zero interest rates, quantitative easing (QE), and fiscal stimulus that has pushed the budget deficit above 10pc of GDP.

The share of the US working-age population with jobs in June actually fell from 58.7pc to 58.5pc. This is the real stress indicator. The ratio was 63pc three years ago. Eight million jobs have been lost.

The average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks. Nothing like this has been seen before in the post-war era. Jeff Weninger, of Harris Private Bank, said this compares with a peak of 21.2 weeks in the Volcker recession of the early 1980s.

“Legions of individuals have been left with stale skills, and little prospect of finding meaningful work, and benefits that are being exhausted. By our math the crop of people who are unemployed but not receiving a check amounts to 9.2m.”

Republicans on Capitol Hill are filibustering a bill to extend the dole for up to 1.2m jobless facing an imminent cut-off. Dean Heller from Vermont called them “hobos”. This really is starting to feel like 1932.

Washington’s fiscal stimulus is draining away. It peaked in the first quarter, yet even then the economy eked out a growth rate of just 2.7pc. This compares with 5.1pc, 9.3pc, 8.1pc and 8.5pc in the four quarters coming off recession in the early 1980s.

The housing market is already crumbling as government props are pulled away. The expiry of homebuyers’ tax credit led to a 30pc fall in the number of buyers signing contracts in May. “It is cataclysmic,” said David Bloom from HSBC. Continue reading »

Tags: BIS, California, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, GDP, Global News, Government, Illinois, Politics, Quantitative Easing, Real Estate, Recession, Retailers, Society, U.S., Unemployment

More green shoots and strong recovery signs:

- Howard Davidowitz: Obama is ‘Mr. Mass Destruction’ – US Economy ‘Is a Complete Disaster’

– US: 1.2 Million Lose Unemployment Benefits Today

– US Economy Shed 125,000 Jobs in June

- RBS tells clients to ‘think the unthinkable’ and prepare for ‘monster’ money-printing by the Fed

– US: 46 States Face Greek-Style Debt Crises

- US: New Home Sales Plummet to Record Low

- US: New claims for jobless benefits rise sharply

This is the Greatest Depression.

(CNN Money) — The recession killed off 7.9 million jobs. It’s increasingly likely that many will never come back.

The government jobs report issued Friday shows that businesses have slowed their pace of hiring to a relative trickle.

“The job losses during the Great Recession were so off the chart, that even though we’ve gained about 600,000 private sector jobs back, we’ve got nearly 8 million jobs to go,” said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute.

Excluding temporary Census workers, the economy has added fewer than 100,000 jobs a month this year — a much faster and stronger jobs recovery than occurred following the last two recessions in 2001 and 1991. Continue reading »

Tags: Economy, Global News, Recession, U.S., Unemployment

Compared to Wall Street the US government and the Fed nuked the economy, the dollar and any bright future that the people in the US might have had. The people will experience the fallout very soon.

The ‘Greatest Depression’.

Cynthia McKinney is spot-on :

- Cynthia McKinney at Munich Germany NATO Peace Rally: ‘My Country Has Been Hijacked By A Criminal Cabal’

(This guest post comes from Tavakoli Structured Finance)

If a high-on-crack driver crashed his speeding rental car into your house and killed your spouse, you would be outraged if law enforcers took bribes and gave the driver a pass on a blood test. If the judge then merely fined the killer and ordered you to pay it, you would appeal, wondering what happened to justice. If the government then handed the crack-driver keys to a bigger rental car and presented you with the rental bill, you would certainly protest.

How is it, then, that you have remained largely silent in the face of the same sort of behavior by Wall Street and Washington? Bonus-seeking bankers careened off the right path and ran Ponzi schemes that nearly ruined our economy. Bureaucrats and elected officials bailed them out without demanding consequences. Bankers are revving their engines again.

Bankers Get Bonuses, the USA Gets the Great Recession

Taxpayers are asked to believe that over-borrowing by U.S. consumers created a global financial crisis. This myth aids and abets Wall Street. The economy was nearly destroyed because banks borrowed massively, and they borrowed many multiples more than they could afford. Wall Street pumped the Fed’s cheap money through financial meth labs, and deceptive financial vehicles ran over securities laws at top speed.

More than 20% of mortgage loans–including originally sound loans–are underwater, meaning the borrower owes more than the home is worth. Official unemployment numbers hover at around 10%. If you include underemployment, it is around 18%. In depressed areas where the nation’s poorest–chiefly minorities–have been hurt the most, unemployment has soared past 30%. For this destitute group, unemployment combined with underemployment exceeds 50%.

As U.S. soldiers fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Wall Street flattened Main Street. Our foreign wars drag on, while the U.S. battles a crippling recession at home.

Global Ponzi Scheme

Fraud by borrowers, fraud on borrowers, and speculation by people who thought home prices would rise forever have all tarnished mortgage lending. Yet this pales compared to the epidemic of predatory lending.

Predatory snipers committed financial murder as deliberately as British soldiers sold smallpox contaminated blankets to Native Americans. Honest homeowners were systematically targeted and actively misled into bad mortgage products. Loans were presented as gifts, but these Trojan horse loans hid destructive risk. “Disclosures” were acts of malice.

When Wall Street packaged these loans and sold deceptive “investments,” documents did not specifically disclose that credit ratings were misleading. If you know or should know a car’s gas tank will blow up, you cannot use a misleading third-party consumer report as an excuse. Yet bonus-seeking bankers used this sort of excuse to get through a few more highly-paid bonus cycles, before it all fell apart. Only the elite crowd of insiders prospered.*

This was the most massive Ponzi scheme in the history of the global capital markets. U.S. taxpayers became unwilling unsophisticated investors when we bailed out the financial system. We must hold Wall Street accountable for its fraud. Continue reading »

Tags: AIG, Bailout, Banking, Barack Obama, Congress, FDIC, Fed, Federal Reserve, financial system, Obama administration, Ponzi schemes, Recession, Taxpayers, U.S., Wall Street

“The collapse of the financial system is still in its early stage.”

“The social unrest will illicit cries for the government to exert unusual force to head off a complete breakdown of law and order. The ultimate trap will be set for a system of government claiming to protect a free society.”

“If more power and police authority are not given to the Federal government, it will be argued that only anarchy will result. If more government policing power is given, it will mean a lethal threat to civil liberties.”

“We are rapidly moving toward a dangerous time in our history. Society as we know it is vulnerable to political and social unrest. This impending crisis comes as a consequence of our flawed foreign and domestic economic policies, a silly notion about money, ignorance about central banking, ignoring the onerous power and mischief of out of control intelligence agencies, our unsustainable welfare state and a willingness to sacrifice privacy and civil liberties in an attempt to achieve safety and security from an inept government.”

“Dangerous times indeed.”

“The only way that we can prevent blood from running in the streets is to offer a better idea of the proper role of government in a society that desires, first and foremost, liberty.”

1 of 3:

Added: 21. Januar 2010

2 of 3:

Added: 21. Januar 2010

3 of 3:

Added: 21. Januar 2010

The Fed and the US government are destroying America:

- America’s Impending Master Class Dictatorship! (MUST-READ!)

- The CFR Controls American News/Media

- Senate Proposes Increasing US Debt Limit to $14.3 Trillion: “If Congress does not enact this legislation, and soon, then the Treasury would default on its debt for the first time in history,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus

- US: Unfunded Benefits Dig States’ $3 Trillion Hole

- Illinois enters a state of insolvency: ‘We’re close to de facto bankruptcy, if not de jure bankruptcy.’

- The No.1 Trend Forecaster Gerald Celente: Financial Mafia Controlling US and Wall Street

- Peter Schiff: The Lunacy of US Government Programs

- Former Dean of Harvard College Harry R. Lewis: Larry Summers, Robert Rubin: Will The Harvard Shadow Elite Bankrupt The University And The Country?
Continue reading »

Tags: Bailout, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, Bubble, Central Bank, China, CIA, Civil liberties, Congress, Constitution, Debt, Depression, Detention, Dollar, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Freedom, Global News, Government, Habeas Corpus, Herbert Clark Hoover, Hyperinflation, Inflation, Keynesianism, Military, Obama administration, Politics, Poverty, Real Estate, Recession, Society, Taxes, Taxpayers, Terrorism, Terrorists, Treasury, U.S., Unemployment, War

December was the worst month for US unemployment since the Great Recession began.

History repeating itself? President Obama has been accused by some economists of making the same mistakes policymakers in the US made in the Great Depression, which followed the Wall Street crash of 1929, pictured Photo: AP

The labour force contracted by 661,000. This did not show up in the headline jobless rate because so many Americans dropped out of the system. The broad U6 category of unemployment rose to 17.3pc. That is the one that matters.

Wall Street rallied. Bulls hope that weak jobs data will postpone monetary tightening: a silver lining in every catastrophe, or perhaps a further exhibit of market infantilism.

The home foreclosure guillotine usually drops a year or so after people lose their job, and exhaust their savings. The local sheriff will escort them out of the door, often with some sympathy — just like the police in 1932, mostly Irish Catholics who tithed 1pc of their pay for soup kitchens.

Realtytrac says defaults and repossessions have been running at over 300,000 a month since February. One million American families lost their homes in the fourth quarter. Moody’s Economy.com expects another 2.4m homes to go this year. Taken together, this looks awfully like Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.

Judges are finding ways to block evictions. One magistrate in Minnesota halted a case calling the creditor “harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive”. We are not far from a de facto moratorium in some areas.

This is how it ended between 1932 and 1934, when half the US states declared moratoria or “Farm Holidays”. Such flexibility innoculated America’s democracy against the appeal of Red Unions and Coughlin Fascists. The home siezures are occurring despite frantic efforts by the Obama administration to delay the process. Continue reading »

Tags: Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, Depression, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, Foreclosures, Global News, Government, Great Depression, Obama administration, Real Estate, Recession, Stock Market, U.S., Unemployment, Wall Street