The big problem is that there is simply way, way, way too much debt in the United States and Europe. It has been a lot of fun spending all of this borrowed money, but now we get to pay the price.
The following are 19 reasons why it is time to start freaking out about the global economy....
#1 The yield on 10 year Italian bonds has now risen to more than 6 percent.
#2 The yield on 10 year Spanish bonds has now risen to more than 7 percent. This is considered to be an unsustainable level.
#3 Citigroup Chief Economist Willem Buiter says that both Italy and Spain are going to need major bailouts.
#4 The Spanish banking crisis continues to get worse. The following is from a CNN article that was posted on Monday....
But the depth of the nation's crisis has raised doubts about whether €100 billion will be enough to recapitalize the banks. For example, the Bank of Spain, the nation's central bank, released data Monday showing that "doubtful" loans -- those that are more than 3 months overdue -- rose to €152.7 billion in April, equal to 8.7% of all the loans held by the nation's banks.
#5 Unemployment in Spain is sitting at a record high of over 24 percent with no hope in sight.
#6 Unemployment in the eurozone as a whole has hit a brand new all-time record high.
#7 The socialists won an outright majority in the recent parliamentary elections in France. That means that France and Germany are now headed in completely different directions. The close cooperation that we have seen between France and Germany in recent years is now over.
#8 New French President Francois Hollande has promised to implement a top tax rate of 75 percent on those making over 1 million euros a year.
#9 German Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared that Germany will not budge at all on the terms of the Greek bailout.
#10 Analysts at Citigroup Global Markets are projecting that the odds of Greece leaving the euro over the next 12 to 18 months are still between 50 and 75 percent.
#11 Money is being transferred from banks in southern Europe to banks in northern Europe at an astounding pace....
Financial advisers and private bankers whose clients have accounts too large to be covered by a Europe-wide guarantee on deposits up to 100,000 euros ($125,000), are reporting a "bank run by wire transfer" that has picked up during May.
Much of this money has headed north to banks in London, Frankfurt and Geneva, financial advisers say.
"It's been an ongoing process but it certainly picked up pace a couple of weeks ago We believe there is a continuous 2-3 year bank run by wire transfer," said Lorne Baring, managing director at B Capital, a Geneva-based pan European wealth management firm.
#12 As I wrote about recently, about 500 million euros a day has been pulled out of Greek banks so far this month.
#13 The Bank for International Settlements is warning that global lending is contracting at the fastest rate that we have seen since the end of the last financial crisis.
#14 Lloyd's of London has publicly admitted that it is making preparations for a collapse of the eurozone.
#15 Government debt levels all over the industrialized world have exploded in recent years. The following is from a recent article by Stephen Lendman....
Five years ago, OECD countries sovereign debt/GDP ratios were 70%. Today it’s 106% and rising.
Anything over 100% is considered to be an extremely dangerous level.
#16 The economic problems in Europe are already taking a toll on the U.S. economy. At this point U.S. exports to Europe are way down.
#17 One recent poll found that 75 percent of Americans are either "very or somewhat worried" that the U.S. economy is heading for another recession.
#18 Under Barack Obama, the United States has been indulging in a debt binge unlike anything ever seen in U.S. history. The following is from a recent Forbes article....
After just one year of the Obama spending binge, federal spending had already rocketed to 25.2% of GDP, the highest in American history except for World War II. That compares to 20.8% in 2008, and an average of 19.6% during Bush’s two terms. The average during President Clinton’s two terms was 19.8%, and during the 60-plus years from World War II until 2008 — 19.7%. Obama’s own fiscal 2013 budget released in February projects the average during the entire 4 years of the Obama Administration to come in at 24.4% in just a few months. That budget shows federal spending increasing from $2.983 trillion in 2008 to an all time record $3.796 trillion in 2012, an increase of 27.3%.
Moreover, before Obama there had never been a deficit anywhere near $1 trillion. The highest previously was $458 billion, or less than half a trillion, in 2008. The federal deficit for the last budget adopted by a Republican controlled Congress was $161 billion for fiscal year 2007. But the budget deficits for Obama’s four years were reported in Obama’s own 2013 budget as $1.413 trillion for 2009, $1.293 trillion for 2010, $1.3 trillion for 2011, and $1.327 trillion for 2012, four years in a row of deficits of $1.3 trillion or more, the highest in world history.
#19 Barack Obama almost seems more focused on his golf game than on the problems the global economy is having. He just finished up playing his 100th round of golf since he became president.
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