Europe Is On The Verge Of Collapsing!
- At times it is almost impossible to explain how dire the situation is to the sheeple. They are just zombie like, living in their American Idol, Desperate Housewives, football …. world. They do not seem to be able to wake up from their dream world and take precautions. They are caught in a normalcy bias which says ‘Bad things can never happen to me. Things will work out fine!’ The reality is: the world is at a similar moment in history as the period 1929 – 1939. At the end of that period, World War 2 came about. Similarly, at the end of this period, WW3 will happen.
– - The situation now is far worse than at any time in modern history. It is easily 10x worse than the first Great Depression. As the saying goes: ‘If you are not afraid, you do not know what is going on!’ Fear is a great motivator for people to take precautions. However, knowing the sheeple, they will be caught like frozen rabbits in the headlights of an on coming car.
– - The next 6 months will likely see events progress as follows:
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– The PIIGS will collapse.
– The collapse of Italy & Spain will cause the entire Eurozone to collapse.
– Consequently, the Euro will collapse. The UKP will follow suit.
– Japan will not survive this (with their Debt to GDP above 200%).
The JPY will tank.
– Finally, this sovereign debt crisis will affect America and the USD will
collapse.
– Countries all over the world will be affected. Almost all countries hold USD.
Almost all countries hold US treasuries, Euro, JPY… keep in mind that
many banks hold sovereign debts of these countries and they will collapse.
– This is the way the global economic, financial and monetary crisis will
come about.
– - It is highly probable that the Illuminists will pull the plug in Q4 this year. We are talking about 100 days to financial Armageddon followed by the build up to World War 3. Got physical gold yet? Excerpts (emphasis mine):
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“Europe Is On The Verge Of Collapsing”
by Raul de Sagastizabal, http://www.globalresearch.ca/
Europe is on the verge of collapsing and the world is again in the quagmire, the reason being Europe, rather than just Greece, is the planet’s soft belly, and the impact of Europe’s eventual downfall would make itself felt throughout the world, even if Germany, or France, could somehow be spared.
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The scale of impact is unpredictable, but potentially worse than that of the recent toxic assets crisis. The European bloc is the second largest economy, the first trade partner of China, the largest importer of Russian energy and the first buyer of high quality raw materials …
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All over the world European debt holders and many states maintain their reserves in euros. China, for example, has one-fourth of its reserves in such currency and holds a large amount of Greek, Portuguese and Spanish debt bonds….
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Without debt restructuring involving important debt amount reductions and extended maturities, Greece will not be able to meet her commitments, just like the rest of Europe’s debt-overhung Europe’s periphery economies – Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Italy, and the effects would certainly contaminate the rest of Europe including the region’s strongest economies. The illusion of dampening the fire by deferring debt maturities is just that – a chimera. Unless public and private bondholders’ debts are reduced and longer maturities granted, default and meltdown are around the corner.
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Debt restructuring means debt renegotiation of debts on behalf of those unable to honour them. In case of default it entails sovereign default. A country notifies its debtors that it is unable to pay and goes into default, outright failure, or proposes to renegotiate its debt and pay less or get extended deadlines. Amount reductions may involve paying a percentage of the original debt, or the original amount during a longer period, or even paying one’s whole debt over longer periods.
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Greece, Unable To Pay A Debt Exceeding 150% of GDP
The latter solution is not available to Greece: with negative real GDP growth, fiscal and trade balance deficits, among other negative indicators, the country is unable to pay a debt exceeding 150% of GDP, even in a far off future.
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In the April 2009 London G-20 summit, whose dubious merit was the rescue of private banks with public money, the developing world bought the idea that the worst was over – and emerging countries bought the idea that this time they would emerge unscathed from the crisis just by adopting local measures
to mitigate the domestic impacts.
…
We’re not saying that Germany, France or The Netherlands should unconditionally bail out such debtor countries – they should certainly have to improve their indicators and spend more carefully – but not in the context of nonviable programs such as those that have worsened their situation and swollen their debts.
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The Greek debt, for example, needed restructuring last year, when it was known to be impossible to meet, and the country and the entire euro area were in a better position to renegotiate with banks and investors.
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The Largest Bailout Package In Europe
Instead, Greece was coerced to implement a bailout package of 110,000 million euros, the largest in Europe. Since then, creditors, with IMF advice, have been evaluating and speculating on the consequences for their economies and banks of letting Greece go bankrupt or rescuing her. Now it is too late. It is not Greece.
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Greece’s bankruptcy would also prompt the failure of other countries in the Southern periphery, and if Greek debt restructuring occurs such other countries would also be called to accept debt-restructuring plans.
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Despite this reality, Germany, France and their Northern partners continue to consider the convenience of restructuring the Greek debt, under some other denomination, to avoid the spectre of contagion, seemingly believing such euphemism makes any difference whatsoever at this stage, …
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No Magic Wands
As for the rest of the indebted countries the Finance Ministers of the European area have just signed a treaty creating a permanent 700,000 million dollars bailout fund, kind of an European International Monetary Fund, which in fact requires the amendment of the Union Treaty and ratification by the member countries. Its purpose is to assist countries in financial difficulties from July 1, 2013. 2013? For the euro zone crisis, 2013 is kind of another century, if anything. Europeans keep playing for time, as somehow their problems might magically be solved.
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There are no magic wands. Time may heal wounds, but certainly does not extinguish fires. Without debt restructuring and financial regulation, the collapse of Europe is just around the corner and will quash the uneven and incipient global economy recovery. Europe is not playing with time, it is playing with fire.
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Raul de Sagastizabal is an international analyst and consultant, expert in international organizations. He writes mainly about global affairs. This article was initially edited in Spanish and English for http://www.politicapress.com. Also published by IDN-InDepthNews: http://www.indepthnews.info
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