Is the world approaching a devastating global economic meltdown? Right now there are a large number of factors that are creating economic stress points all over the globe.
All of the crazy money printing that the Federal Reserve and other central banks have been doing is putting inflationary pressure on agricultural commodities, oil and precious metals.
Massive floods, horrific droughts and extreme weather patterns all over the globe are ruining crops and creating food shortages.
Some nations are now actually hoarding food, and in other nations rising prices have sparked food riots. The price of oil has been moving back towards $100 a barrel, and if it stays at a high level for an extended period of time that is going to have very serious consequences for the global economy.
In addition, the growing sovereign debt crisis could erupt again at any time. Half a dozen nations in Europe are on the verge of insolvency, Japan's national debt is now well over 200 percent of GDP, and the global financial system is growing increasingly concerned about the exploding national debt of the United States. The truth is that the entire world financial system is a house of cards balanced on a razor's edge and it could come down at any time.
Sadly, very little has changed since the world financial system experienced almost a complete meltdown back in 2008. Global financial markets are still a whirlpool of debt and speculation. One really bad week could put us right back where we were prior to the infamous Wall Street bailouts. Very little in our world is truly stable anymore. As we have seen recently in Egypt, the globe can literally change almost overnight. All it would take is for one really bad event to happen and world financial markets would instantly start imploding.
So when will the coming economic collapse happen? Nobody knows for sure, but the fact that the global economy is increasingly becoming less stable as we approach the year 2012 is making a lot of people very nervous.
Global food prices set a new all-time record during the month of January
In early February the worst freeze in 60 years wiped out entire crops all across the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico
Image: ap
It is being reported that due to the recent horrible freeze in Mexico cases of tomatoes that would usually cost shop owners around $13 are now going for up to $40
One of China's key agricultural provinces is facing its worst drought in 200 years
The FAO says that up to two-thirds of China's wheat crop could be at risk of failing due to weather conditions
Officials in Mexico are estimating that four million tons of corn have been lost because of the recent freeze.
The price of corn has doubled over the last six months and it recently hit a new all-time high
The USDA has announced that corn supplies are the tightest that they have been in 15 years
It appears that Chinese imports of corn will be about 9 times larger than the USDA originally projected them to be for 2011
The price of wheat has more than doubled over the past year and it hit a 30-month high on Monday
In the event of a global catastrophe, current global stockpiles of wheat would only be able to feed the world for 82 days
The price of soybeans is up about 50% since last June
The price of cotton has more than doubled over the past year
The commodity price of orange juice has doubled since 2009
The price of sugar is the highest it has been in 30 years
The UN projects that the global price of food will increase by another 30% by the end of 2011
In the U.K., the official rate of inflation is now twice as high as the target rate of inflation
Inflation in China is starting to get out of control
Almost 14% of all credit card accounts in the US are currently 90 days or more delinquent
New home sales in the state of California were at the lowest level ever recorded in the month of January
The number of job openings in the United States declined for a second straight month during December
Average household debt in the United States has now reached a level of 136% of average household income
It is estimated that there are about 5 million homeowners in the United States that are at least two months behind on their mortgages
Image: flickr
Today, 46% of all Americans carry a credit card balance from month to month
700,000 Americans have signed up for a credit card that has interest rates that go as high as 59.9%
Americans now owe more than $889 billion on student loans, which is even more than they owe on credit cards
The FDIC is "insuring" U.S. bank deposits that total 5.4 trillion dollars with a deposit insurance fund that is currently sitting at approximately negative 8 billion dollars
The Social Security trust fund will run a deficit of 56 billion dollars this year
When you adjust wages for inflation, middle class workers in the United States make less money today than they did back in 1971
4.2 million Americans have been unemployed for one year or longer at this point
The number of Americans that have become so discouraged that they have given up searching for work completely now stands at an all-time high
35 percent of Americans believe that unemployment is currently the most important problem in the United States
Image: AP
Gallup also says that 19.6 percent of the workforce in America is currently either unemployed or underemployed
The U.S. government says that 504,000 Americans "dropped out of the labor force" in January
The Obama administration is projecting that the federal budget deficit will be 1.65 trillion dollars for fiscal 2011
It is estimated that the total U.S. national debt will be greater than 100 percent of GDP by the end of this fiscal year
The U.S. government relies on foreign nations such as China and Japan to finance 40 percent of all new government debt
State and local government debt is now sitting at an all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP
The Chinese are now hoarding gold like there is no tomorrow
The world is going to need another $100 trillion in credit to support projected "economic growth" over the next decade
According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, visits to soup kitchens are up 24 percent over the past year
One out of every six elderly Americans now lives below the federal poverty line
During the last school year, almost half of all school children in the state of Illinois came from families that were considered to be "low-income"
Image: AP
55 percent of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck
Gasoline prices in the United States are now the highest that they have ever been in the middle of February
Faith in our economic system continues to decline
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3 comments:
Treason.
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Bad signs all over.
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