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Lent, spent and guaranteed
Let's start with Gerald Celente of Trend Forecasters:
Hedge funder Hugh Hendry needs less words:
Canadian fund manager Eric Sprott has this (about the US):
The US M3 money supply (the most comprehensive number, albeit no longer supplied by the government, is sinking like an anvil, with an annualized rate of contraction of 9.6%. And even though nobody I’ve read seems prepared to call this spade for what it is, this, dear grasshoppers, is what constitutes deflation. Not falling prices, they are but a consequence of a falling money supply and velocity (which today is slower than the heavy mud BP so far fails to use to plug its "leak"). And as much as it may seem astonishing to see the money supply fall that hard and fast, it does so, and we at The Automatic Earth did tell you well in advance. The deleveraging going on inside all the fields combined that make up the economy is simply too much of a force to plug with a bunch of trillions of dollars and/or golf balls. Yes, the comparisons between the failed and failing US financial policies on the one side, and the botched beyond belief BP disaster inevitably come to the forefront as President Obama visits the Gulf region for a second time in 38 days. Where are his priorities? Why does he act as he does? It was clear for many from the get-go that Deepwater Horizon had the potential to be the worst environmental calamity in US history. Where was Obama? How does a president decide he doesn’t have to be where it hurts? Now, after all this time, he shows up and claims that Washington won't let the people of the Gulf of Mexico fall. Problem is, Washington, and the president, already have. And neither can have those 38 days back. California's municipalities are, ever more of them, considering bankruptcy as a last resort to escape at least some of their worst and darkest dreams. So does Miami. New York State seems set to increase borrowing from its own funds to keep up appearances a little longer. Never mind. It's over, guys, it really is. Look at the stock markets, look at Europe, look at Sacramento, Miami, Ohio, Illinois. Does anyone near you really still believe that we’ll have an economic recovery, with real economic growth, anytime in the next little, say, decade? If they do, please refer them to the M3 number. And if they don't even get that one, give up. You must surely be talking to a pride of religious crazies. Fannie and Freddie need more aid (and much more than they let on, they feed it bite-size), while the lenders they urge to buy back non-performing loans from them cry foul, and want the government to furnish them with taxpayer money or else. Exactly like the public/private pension plans Congress is, and I kid you not, considering bailing out. Everyone will be bailed out who has sufficient political influence, it’s all just like a giant auction where Washington, Sacramento and Albany are selling the kitchen sink right before your eyes and right before dinner time. In the game of political musical chairs, you're doomed and done for if you don't have that influence, if you’re neither rich nor a member of an organization present on Capitol Hill or its state peers. The final bits of bread are being laid out on the table as we speak, and if you don’t have a seat, you are now expendable. The US Senate today didn't even bother to stay open for an emergency unemployment extension bill; other matters, like getting home for a nice meal or two at the country estate, were more important. At least it leaves no doubts as per their genuine intentions. It’s hard to gauge, for all sorts of reasons, how long the American people will keep on taking all of this lying down. Does it need to be children starving by the side of the road? And even then, who will do what? In Europe, these matters are far less obscure, opaque and oblique. We've seen Athens, and multiple times. And if you take a good look at what's lined up in budget cuts and austerity measures in Spain, you know it's only a matter of time till human bulls will wreak havoc on the streets of Pamplona. France wants to lift its retirement age above 60 years of age, and though I think that's reasonable considering what their neighbors do, I don’t kid myself about the power and the riot potential the French have in them. Behind the European fighting spirit there is something that seems largely lacking stateside: the profound heartfelt conviction that it's not the poorest who should pay for the games of the richest. And I know that’s not what today's French protests are about, but that is where it's all heading. If the unions in Paris get their way, someone else will have to pay. And that will be the poorest, the eldest, the youngest and the sickest, in short anyone who has no voice but their sole own one. But they will find a common voice, just not through orderly meetings that elect chairmen and secretaries. They'll find it out in the streets, when they meet people just as desperate as they are, and just as angry. Until quite recently, I figured the unrest would lay dormant through the Northern Hemisphere summer, what with holidays, heat, nice weather, pretty girls and all. And certainly in Europe with the soccer World Cup, something the Spanish, Greeks, Italians, Portuguese, Brits and all the rest hold dear above their own yaya's, grandmothers. Today, I'm not so sure anymore. The soccer matches may even well set off the political blazes. This thing can blow up in our faces any moment now, with one fire igniting another across countries and within them. There’s just too many people falling by too many waysides, and too many of them will very simply not go gently into that night without a fight. People on both sides of the Atlantic have been taught to believe that they have a right to a decent human existence, and to a genuine pursuit of their own happiness. They will not abandon these lessons lightly. |
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No, I'm by no means the only one who thinks this thing will not end well.
