“The World is in Trouble” sez German Bank Econ
Weimar Currency.
The top economist at Germany’s D-Bank says the green shoots are about to turn brown.
‘The World Is in Trouble’: Deutsche Bank Chief Economist
The global economy still faces turmoil as governments try to figure out how to move out of fiscal rescue packages, which could lead to another two downturns, Deutsche Bank Chief Economist Norbert Walter said Thursday. In addition, nervousness on the part of major dollar holders could pressure the greenback and lead to a very worrying 2010, Walter said. Norbert said recently in research notes “the world is in trouble.”
“I believe that the rescue packages brought on have been so costly for so many governments that the exit from this fiscal policy will be very painful, very painful indeed,” he said. “Some of us are already talking about a W-shaped recovery. I’d probably talk about a triple-U-shaped recovery because there are so many stumbling blocks here to get out of this.”
This explains it all or Why we spent two trillion dollars we didn’t have
To Battle Gog and Magog.
A French Revelation, or The Burning Bush
JAMES A. HAUGHT
Gog and Magog - what worried Bush the most.
Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.
Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.
Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”
This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its “coalition of the willing” to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”
Huge Regional Thrift Set to Collapse
Guaranty Bank, the second largest in Texas has been ordered to turn itself over to the FDIC.
The End of Empire – The BRIC is hitting the fan, folks!
Children playing with stacks of cash in Weimar Germany.
Stop reading right now unless you are prepared to be massively depressed. Our empire has fallen. We are now, officially, the Romans. In a stunning, devastating piece at TruthDig, Chris Hedges puts together the cataclysmic chain of events to come that many of us have struggled to round up and articulate since September of 2007. It took a year after that for the situation to get so bad, on September 21, 2008, that the Congressional leadership was called together by the Fed and Treasury and told without a massive cash infusion of tax dollars the whole rotten movie set that was our economy was going to fall on top of us. Riot, mayhem, violence and disintegration were sure to follow. Out of that meeting was born TARP, TALF, AIG, GM, the stimulus package, etc.
The whole piece is a must read, but some snippets after the jump will curl your hair.
Quote of the Day – Mark Ancona
I stumbled upon this while reading the comments section of James Howard Kunstler’s weekly blog entry. By a click, I found this gentleman, Mark Ancona, also has a blog on silver, which I am fond of, usually describing myself as a “Free Silver Democrat” to people who don’t get the reference.
I see the inevitable, and it is approaching us with increasing speed. The potential for disaster is extreme and my neighbors just do not get it. I have stopped speaking to most folks about the need to grow our food locally and accumulate some real money in the form of silver and gold because they think I am insane.
It will come to pass that America descends into the abyss of lawless violence, when the entitlement checks stop coming in the mail, and fewer and fewer people can afford to buy gasoline. Our crumbling and antiquated electrical infrastructure is one lightning bolt away from meltdown, so rather than repair it we give fifty billion dollars to a car company with a 900 million dollar market cap.
Day Old Bread – Odds and Ends 06/08/09
- Can’t make the payment? Light a match!
- Palin kicked out of Republicanist fund raising dinner – again.
- Right wing on the upswing in meaningless EU elections.
- ChiComs put Ray Nagin on lockdown in Shanghai. Has the mayor been “Shanghaied”?
- Apparently we’re letting some of the big banks pay back their TARP money. Let them give it all back, dammit!
- Laura Bush thinks Sotomayor is OK.
- Can’t afford your car payment? Torch the damn thing!
- Right Wing Israeli government stands in the way of Mideast Peace, while simultaneously claiming to have a new plan in the works.
- Canadian nurses meet to discuss possible violence surrounding flu pandemics. Now, they’re talking.
- Government selectively tracks the pig flu.
- Officials said to be preparing for second wave of flu. 1918 here we come.
- Coming to a jailhouse near you – Rikers Island overrun with the pig flu.
- I am irritated with the President on DADT, but I understand his strategery.
Day Old Bread – Odds and Ends – 05/29/09
- Paul Krugman is not worried about inflation.
- My boy Berlusconi is in hot water again. L’affaire Noemi?
- GM Readies For Bankruptcy.
- While Confederate mushmouth Dick Shelby is ringing the socialism alarm bells - again, over the deal. His alternative? Let it fall.
- Gold on 3 month high. Silver closing in on $16.00 per ounce?
Day Old Bread – Odds & Ends – 05/27/09
- GM bankruptcy almost certain as bondholders tell company to stick their stock offer where the sun don’t shine.
- GM bankruptcy seen as a certain disaster for the economy.
- Survey of economists says Depression will end soon. Roubini doesn’t think so. My money’s on Dr. Doom.
- The contagion spreads while the WHO wonders if they jumped the gun on the pandemic alert number. These people will shilly-shally and fart around till we all drop like flies.
- The Dear Leader would like to re-start the Korean War.
Day Old Bread – 05/26/09
- The Swine flu is a particularly tricky bug.
- It looks like you could get both pig flu and seasonal flu at the same time. (By the way, please note, they’re really only telling the Chinese this, and not us.)
- Meanwhile, the World Bank is not being shy about the possibility of widespread civil unrest as a result of the Depression.
- Speaking of the Depression, many think it could go on for three more years.
The Economic Downfall and the Rise of Tent Cities
The Camp of the Bonus Army, 1932.
H1N1 Update – It will probably kill us all.
- Bring Out Your Dead! Bring Out Your Dead!
- CDC has shifted focus to predict how the pig flu will kill us all next October. The guessing games goes on and on.
- The Japs and the Aussies have it now, too.
- The H1N1 has to get tougher still before we starting dropping like soldiers in 1918.
- Comes the day the pig flu marries the bird flu, we are the ones who will get fucked.
- The WHO says cases are on the rise – rapidly.
- UK Health Honcho reckons H1N1 more infectious than first thought. Duh!
- The pig flu’s target kills are between 20 and 29 years old. 1918!
Bank Failure Friday – May Day Edition
Two Three so far this week:
Daily Gloom – 04/24/09
- Shred them! Just say “NO”!
- Geithner says banks have sufficient capital.
- Then, why aren’t they lending it out?
- Do we even want them to lend it out, asks Robert Reich?
- “There are three ways to fix the banking system; liquidation, reorganization and subsidization. Geithner has rejected all three.” – a very interesting read – slowly, though – there’s a lot to digest.
- One Irish newspaper says a majority of Irish people expect “civil unrest” this summer.
Daily Gloom – 04/23/09
- No Buy-eee, no carr-ee.
- March existing home sales fall by 3 percent.
- “Flexible” loans for small business owners now threaten them with bankruptcy and home foreclosure at the same time.
- Jobless Claims at 640,000; Continuing Claims Rise.
- General Motors to shutter plants this summer.
- Big Brown is down.
- My favorite economist sees ever more contraction. “This will be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and the worst global economic downturn in decades. “
Secretary Clinton Bitchslaps Grandstanding GOPer Hard-off Mike Pence
[C-SPAN via TPM:]
This guy asked for it and he got it in aces and spades. She might be a bitch, but she’s Our Bitch. Loves us some Hillary.
Daily Gloom – 04/22/09
Murder/suicide in Maryland linked to family’s finances, foreclosure.- The acting chief financial officer of troubled mortgage giant Freddie Mac was found dead in his Fairfax County home early this morning after apparently committing suicide.
- Workplace abuses and racial profiling are rampant in the South. New report cites misdeeds by Confederate employers, cops.
- Millions of lost jobs mean billions in lost tax revenue for the U.S. government, and billions in additional Treasury debt to fund a federal budget deficit that may soar to more than four times last year’s record $454.7 billion.
Daily Gloom – 04/20/09
- IMF predicts massive, longterm global depression.
- “The human consequences could be absolutely devastating. This is a truly global crisis, and nobody is escaping.”
- General Growth’s demise sharpens concerns over commercial property collapse.
- GM to axe 1,600 more employees this week.
- With unemployment in California at 11+% some question just how high it can go.
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