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Perhaps people will finally believe that the Sun is in charge of Climate Change. The solar wind has died down to a mere 335 km/sec, there are only three tiny sunspots on the Sun and Solar activity remains low. With no sunspots actively flaring, the sun's X-ray output has flatlined. NOAA forecasters estimate a scant 1% chance of X-flares and a 10% chance of M-flares on Feb. 15th. And a record breaking winter is upon us, just like the record breaking cool summer we had last year. By the way, the Global Warming summit in Boston was cancelled this week, due to snow and cold weather.Top of Form
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Bankers May Reveal the Collapse
Are we on the verge of a major worldwide economic downturn? Well, if recent warnings from prominent bankers all over the world are to be believed, that may be precisely what we are facing in the months ahead. By the way, with this week’s banker suicide, we are now up to 71 bankers since 2009 dying or disappearing by suicide or other freak accidents.
The bigbest banks are warning that the price of oil could soon drop as low as 20 dollars a barrel, that a Greek exit from the eurozone could push the EUR/USD down to 0.90, and that the global economy could shrink by more than 2 trillion dollars in 2015. That shrinkage is well on its way.
Most of the time, very few people ever actually read the things that the big banks write for their clients. But in recent months, a lot of these bankers are issuing such ominous warnings that you would think that they have started to write for The Economic Collapse Blog.
Of course we have seen this happen before. Just before the financial crisis of 2008, a lot of people at the big banks started to get spooked, and now we are beginning to see an atmosphere of fear spread on Wall Street once again. Nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next, but an increasing number of experts are starting to agree that it won’t be good.
Let’s start with oil. Over the past couple of weeks, we have seen a nice rally for the price of oil. It has bounced back into the low 50s, which is still low enough to tell us there is glut of oil out there. Will it bounce back? Yes. Even Saudi Arabia needs the price to go back up to around $85 a barrel unless it means that US Shale production will resume.
Unfortunately, many of the experts at the big banks are now anticipating that the exact opposite will happen instead. For example, Citibank says that we could see the price of oil go as low as 20 dollars this year…Watch for the market makers to try and short it to that point.
The recent rally in crude prices looks more like a head-fake than a sustainable turning point — The drop in US rig count, continuing cuts in upstream capital expenditures, the reading of technical charts, and short traders sustained the end-January 8.1% jump in Brent and 5.8% jump in WTI into the first week of February.
Short-term market factors are more bearish, pointing to more price pressure for the next couple of months and beyond — The glut is real, and storage of cheap oil is full. As floating storage reaches its limits, there should be downward price pressure to shut in production. In other words, the Chinese and Indians are buying up supertankers full of crude oil as a hedge.
Oil may jump up and down for a few weeks whilwe the glut is burned off or refined into finished goods like chemicals or plastic.
It is not so much that there is a million barrels a day too much oil in the market that is hurting the banks. It is the enormous debt they are carrying that is defaulting by the day on the rigs and equipment it takes to manufacture Shale oil. None of those equipment leases or loans will be paid on time this year or next. That is an oil equipment bubble in the billions.
Many firms simply cannot afford to shut down their rigs, but they have no choice. You cannot sell quarters for a dime and hope to stay alive. Many are leveraged to the hilt and are really struggling just to service their debt payments. They have to keep pumping so that they can have revenue to meet their financial obligations, but the bank will soon arrive to pick up the keys.
The following comes directly from the Bank for International Settlements…
“Against this background of high debt, a fall in the price of oil weakens the balance sheets of producers and tightens credit conditions, potentially exacerbating the price drop as a result of sales of oil assets, for example, more production is sold forward,” BIS said.
In the end, a lot of these energy companies are going to go belly up if the price of oil does not rise significantly this year. And any financial institutions that are exposed to the debt of these companies or to energy derivatives will likely be in a great deal of distress as well. It won’t be up to the levels they need to catch up by the year’s end. Saudi Arabia has won this price war, to be sure.
Meanwhile, the overall global economy continues to slow down.
On Monday, we learned that the Baltic Dry Index has dropped to the lowest level ever. Not even during the darkest depths of the last recession did it drop this low.
And there are some at the big banks that are warning that this might just be the beginning.
For instance, David Kostin of Goldman Sachs is projecting that sales growth for S&P 500 companies will be zero percent for all of 2015…
“Consensus now forecasts 0% S&P 500 sales growth in 2015 following a 5% cut in revenue forecasts since October. Low oil prices along with FX headwinds and pension charges have weighed on 4Q EPS results and expectations for 2015.”
Others are even more pessimistic than that. According to Bank of America, the global economy will actually shrink by 2.3 trillion dollars in 2015.
One thing that could greatly accelerate our economic problems is the crisis in Greece. If there is no compromise and a new Greek debt deal is not reached, there is a very real possibility that Greece could leave the eurozone.
If Greece does leave the eurozone, the continued existence of the monetary union will be thrown into doubt and the euro will utterly collapse.
Of course I am not the only one saying these things. Analysts at Morgan Stanley are even projecting that the EUR/USD could plummet to 0.90 if there is a “Grexit”…
The Greek Prime Minister has reaffirmed his government’s rejection of the country’s international bailout programme two days before an emergency meeting with the euro area’s finance ministers on Wednesday. His declaration suggested increasing minimum wages, restoring the income tax-free threshold and halting infrastructure privatisations. Should Greece stay firm on its current anti-bailout course and with the ECB not accepting Greek T-bills as collateral, the position of ex-Fed Chairman Greenspan will gain increasing credibility.
He forecast the eurozone to break as private investors will withdraw from providing short-term funding to Greece. Greece leaving the currency union would convert the union into a club of fixed exchange rates, a type of ERM III, leading to further fragmentation. Greek Fin Min Varoufakis said the euro will collapse if Greece exits, calling Italian debt unsustainable. Markets may gain the impression that Greece may not opt for a compromise, instead opting for an all or nothing approach when negotiating on Wednesday. It seems the risk premium of Greece leaving EMU is rising. Our scenario analysis suggests a Greek exit taking EURUSD down to 0.90.
If that happens, we could see a massive implosion of the 26 trillion dollars in derivatives that are directly tied to the value of the euro.
We are moving into a time of great peril for global financial markets, and there are a whole host of signs that we are slowly heading into another major global economic crisis.
So don’t be fooled by all of the happy talk in the mainstream media. You had better get your 401k cashed in before it is too late. They did not see the last crisis coming either.
THE MEN BEHIND THE CURTAIN
By Coach Dave Daubenmire
February 12, 2015
NewsWithViews.com
“Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws.” —Mayer Rothschild.
For most people, facing the truth is a hard thing to do. It is so much easier to simply ignore the obvious than it is to make the necessary, hard decisions that are required once we know the truth.
Facing the truth takes courage. Dealing with the truth demands courage. But ignoring harsh reality is cowardly. As I often say, “Silence isn't golden, it’s yellow.”
As any “therapist” will tell you, the first step to healing is admitting the truth about your condition. An alcoholic will never seek treatment until he admits he has a problem. A gambler will never seek help until he admits that he is hooked on gambling. And a woman can never receive healing and forgiveness for a past abortion until she admits that what she did was wrong.
So, too, America is in a mess because we will not admit the obvious. We have failed to deal with what we know to be true. As in ‘The Wizard of Oz’, there really are ‘men behind the curtain.’
I wrote my first commentary shortly after 9/11. I have been faithfully hunting-and-pecking the truth nearly every week for going on 14 years now. I am not some Johnny-come-lately in regards to writing what I believe to be true. You can find over 400 of my commentaries on this website and you are free to comb through them and see for yourself how accurate my writings have been. I wish I had been wrong about so much of what I’ve written, but America is in a state of denial.
It’s about time that we understand and admit to ourselves that President Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim. I don't know how actively he participates in the Islamic rites and rituals, but there is no doubt that he identifies with Allah far more than he does the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The “War on Terror” is being waged with a Commander in Chief whose administration is full of representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood. You can deny it if you want, but there is an enemy of America in the White House. Yes, folks, Saudi money has bought the White House.
As far as our political system goes, there is very little difference between the two parties. Oh, you can find differences in their advertised ‘platforms’, but for the most part, practicality nothing changes regardless of which party holds the majority. The only difference between John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi is the deceitful words that they spew. Otherwise, very little changes in national policy.
Both the Democrat and the Republican leadership are for bigger government. Neither party represents the will of the people, but rather the will of their lobbyists and donors. Money controls everything. Voting brings very little change. You are free to believe that things will change now that the Republicans are in control, but unfortunately the puppet masters haven't changed.
In reality, the bankers run the world. It is mathematically impossible for America to ever get out of debt. Balancing the budget won't do it. Cutting spending won't do it. Raising or lowering taxes won't do it. Our monetary system is a debt-based system. Debt drives the economy. The only way out of the financial mess that we find ourselves in is a total collapse of the current system, and it is inevitable.
Understand that Social Security is broke. Your pension fund will disappear. Your 401K retirement plan is not worth the ink that is printed on your ‘Federal Reserve Notes’. While you are busy collecting paper money, the wealthy are buying real, tangible property and precious metals. The Bible calls gold and silver the only real money, but you have been convinced that paper currency is true wealth. The sad fact remains, however, that paper money is, well...paper and ink.
Your financial adviser is trained in navigating this debt-based system. The borrower is servant to the lender, the Scriptures teach. Debt is our master. Debt controls the earth. Are you in debt? Have you taught your children to go into debt? You can't serve both debt and God.
Did you know that The Federal Reserve is a PRIVATE business owned by the World Bank? The United States Congress has no authority whatsoever over The Fed. It will never be audited because it is a private organization outside the control of our government. The Fed prints money out of thin air and then charges us interest on the money that it creates. The Federal Reserve is autonomous and they own the banks. By proxy, The Federal Reserve controls everything Congress does. The bankers are the bosses. Everyone works for them. Our Republic has been stolen.
“By this means government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft." —John Maynard Keynes.
The media is owned by the same group of people who own the banks. These same people who own the banks have also bought our congressional ‘representatives’ with donations. The banks own the government. The banks own the media that ‘reports’ on the actions of the government. The President obediently lies about what is really going on. Brian Williams shamefully and submissively lies about what the government is actually doing. Hillary, The Bushes, CNN, FOX News, John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi: they all work for the same boss. Open your eyes and stop denying the truth.
The churches have also been co-opted. By willingly putting on the yoke of the 501(c)(3) corporate relationship with the government, churches are now under control of the government. Under this oppressive ‘arrangement’, the IRS tells the preachers what they can and cannot preach.
But isn’t the church supposed to represent Truth? It was Nathan the Prophet (the church) who stuck his finger to the nose of King David (the government) and called him to account. Today the government exercises veto-power over the church. God's mouthpiece has been silenced. Money controls government, and the government now controls the church. The banks control the money. The Federal Reserve controls the banks. So you see, the bankers are ‘the men behind the curtain.’