Biden promised serious problems to the whole world if the US defaults on public debt pic.twitter.com/DRYLEg989i
— Spriter (@Spriter99880) May 10, 2023
Debt slavery
Greg Mannarino says that before the new fully controlled slave system is rolled out, the old slave system has to be destroyed by a crisis. For this reason, he believes the United States will default on its debt in order to crash the current system.
by Mac Slavo
May 9, 2023
Greg Mannarino says that before the new fully controlled slave system is rolled out, the old slave system has to be destroyed by a crisis. For this reason, he believes the United States will default on its debt in order to crash the current system.
“A crisis of epic proportions” is coming, so it’s time to prepare. “I think this threat is very real,” Mannarino says of the ruling class’s possible debt default. He gives is a “50/50 shot” of happening.
The Endgame: Central Bank Digital Currency
“A U.S. debt default will have far-reaching ramifications here…if in fact, there is a U.S. debt default, the stock market would fall by a third in one day,” Mannarino says. The soonest the U.S. would default will be June 1st.
“If this lasted any length of time if this got drawn out, let’s say a week or two, the stock market will lose half its value,” he added. “This could play out to be a big crisis, and it may be exactly what they’re looking to do here.”
Mannarino adds that he’s not saying this is going to happen for sure, but there’s a “strong possibility” that this will be how the ruling class takes down the system. He also says that if you’re counting on a rate cut this summer, you shouldn’t. It’s not coming. “The Fed is going to keep the pressure on the middle class, in fact, increase that pressure on the middle class.”
Prepare For An Economic Emergency Or Recession
“The regional bank,” Mannario added with a laugh, “are getting spanked this morning…again, what are they doing? They are trying desperately to instill a sense of confidence in the system…it’s a con job on an epic scale here.”
On The Verge Of A Banking Industry Apocalypse?
The ruling class, which includes the central banks, is bending and twisting the reality toward the new system. Recently, Mannarino said that the central banks are getting very close to rolling out the “endgame” slave system.
IMF Publishes Plans To Implement CBDCs
The World Economic Forum has also said a fully controllable digital currency is inevitable. In order to maintain control over humanity, this next step is necessary.
This whole thing could get “very real, very fast.”
Experts warn of ‘cataclysmic’ scenario if world’s biggest economy fails to meet its debt obligations.
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/5/10/what-happens-if-the-us-defaults-on-its-debt
May 10, 2023
By Megha Bahree
As a game of chicken plays out in Washington, DC, over whether to raise the limit on US government borrowing to avoid a default on its debt, the one thing that experts agree on is that a default would be catastrophic.
The United States hit its borrowing limit on January 19. Since then, the US Treasury has implemented a number of measures to avoid a default, but it is only a matter of days, or weeks at most, before those are exhausted and the US government is unable to pay what it owes.
Here’s an explainer on what happens if this unprecedented event takes place.
What are the chances that the US will indeed default?
No one really knows because it is “a political issue”, Lawrence J White, an economics professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University, told Al Jazeera.
“I keep hoping there will be a resolution, but this is a game of chicken, and usually somebody swerves and a head-on collision is avoided… but sometimes people go over the cliff, and that is the big worry,” he said.
To avoid a default, Congress would have to lift the debt ceiling, but Republicans are demanding spending cuts to do so. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, wants a simple vote in Congress that would only deal with raising the government’s debt limit.
Worry about the deadlock has amplified in the past few days as the so-called X-date – when the Treasury would run out of money to pay its bills – has moved up from mid-August to as early as June 1 on account of low tax collections in April, Bernard Yaros, assistant director at Moody’s Analytics, told Al Jazeera.
If the Treasury can limp along until mid-June, Yaros said, it will have a “surge” in tax receipts from businesses and individuals and close to $150bn in new extraordinary measures that will help it keep money flowing through late July or even early August.
But it is not clear it will get that breathing room.
What is the worst-case scenario?
The US goes into a weeks-long default with Republicans and Democrats digging in their heels.
Such a situation would be “a cataclysmic scenario” and be followed by a recession of the order of the financial crisis of 2008, Yaros said.
In such a scenario, the federal government would have to immediately slash its outlays and cut government spending.
As these cuts worked their way through the economy, “the hit to growth would be overwhelming,” Yaros and several Moody’s colleagues said in an analysis published in March.
Apart from this, financial markets would be in turmoil, interest rates would spike further and the strength of the dollar would decline, White said.
If the political deadlock drags out, interest rates will go even higher, dissuading people from borrowing or investing, White said.
“This will be echoed around the world,” he said. “This is not a good thing for anybody.”
A short breach
Even if the US were to fail to meet its obligations for only a number of days, there would still be consequences for the economy.
“The world will say we can’t rely on the US Treasury as much as we used to, and that will make people more reluctant to hold Treasury obligations,” White said.
“Interest rates for Treasury bills and bonds will go up and that will ultimately lead to a bigger tax burden for Americans.”
It could also fuel calls for alternatives to the US dollar, which for decades has been the unparalleled currency in international finance.
While it is unclear if credit rating agencies would downgrade Treasury debt if it fails to meet its obligations, any downgrade would set off a cascade of credit implications and downgrades on the debt of many other financial institutions, non-financial corporations, municipalities, infrastructure providers, structured finance transactions and other debt issuers, Moody’s has warned.
Those institutions that are backstopped by the US government – including mortgage financiers Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Bank – would likely suffer the biggest downgrades to their ratings.
“Despite lawmakers’ quick reversal in this scenario and our assumption that the rating agencies do not engage in downgrades, significant damage will have already been done,” Moody’s said.
“The fact that we haven’t even solved this position by now is not a good thing,” White said.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
California’s recent decision not to pay back some $20 billion borrowed from the federal government to cover unemployment benefits during the pandemic will fall on the shoulders of employers, according to experts.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/california-defaults-186-billion-debt-saddling-employers-expense
BY TYLER DURDEN
“The state should have taken care of the loans with the COVID money it received from the government in 2021,” said Marc Joffe, policy analyst at the Cato Institute—a public policy think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., in a statement to the Epoch Times.
In the state’s proposed 2023-2024 budget, $750 million was allocated to start paying down the loans, until Governor Gavin Newsom nixed the provision in early January, leaving businesses in the state responsible for the loans, as mandated by federal regulations – so that the federal unemployment tax rate of .6 percent will increase by .3% per year starting in 2023 until the loan is extinguished.
“California is just not really an employer-friendly state,” said Joffe. “This one thing will not be a difference between a business remaining open or closing, but it’s just another burden on top of the many burdens the state puts on employers.“
In total, 22 states borrowed money for unemployment insurance from the federal government. All but four, California, Colorado, Connecticut, and New York, have paid back their debts – with California owing the most by far at $18.6 billion as of May 2, followed by New York at $8 billion, Connecticut at $187 million and Colorado at $77 million, according to data from the US Treasury.
More via the Epoch Times,
Initially, the state borrowed from its reserves to pay the benefits, but after exhausting its coffers borrowed to cover expenses, analysts said.
Exacerbating the situation were unprecedented levels of fraud occurring across the state, due to limited oversight and antiquated computer systems, according to Lee Ohanian, professor of economics at the University of California–Los Angeles.
Analytics firm LexisNexis estimated the total cost of the fraud at $32.6 billion.
Investigations have since uncovered that illegitimate unemployment benefits payments were paid to convicted felons, with one address receiving 60 separate fraudulent payments.
Fraud is a persistent issue historically with the program, and a $2 million federal grant in 2013 sought to address the issue with new computer software systems.
The upgrade successfully stopped instances of fraud, but further improvements stopped with the end of the grant in 2016, reportedly due to the agency’s reluctance to take on the annual expense for the third-party service.
“They were penny wise and pound foolish,” Ohanian told The Epoch Times.
At a cost of $2 million annual investment, the program would have cost $14 million to operate since it was terminated.
“Sadly, this is just a trifecta of bad decisions,” Ohanian said. “The [Employment Development Department] made a bad decision to not renew its lease for the fraud detection software, the state government took out a loan and chose to welch on the debt—which is outrageous—and now businesses are repaying more in taxes for the incredibly unwise decisions and mistakes of the state government.”
Reports that the state is seeking forgiveness from the federal government were met with resistance by policy experts, including Ohanian.
“We’ve made a lot of bad decisions and we expect the rest of the country to pay for it,” he said. “It also raises questions about the future: If the state is going to default on the $20 billion federal loans, how safe are municipal bonds from California?”
The major global economies are shifting and the clues are there for those who know where to look
https://www.rt.com/business/575849-dedollarization-us-oil-trade/
April 6, 2023
By Dr. Radhika Desai, a professor at the Department of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada and director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group. She also writes on current affairs for Valdai Club, CGTN, Counterpunch and other outlets and is the author of Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire and Capitalism, Coronavirus and War: A Geopolitical Economy
© Aaron McCoy / Getty Images
De-dollarization is increasingly making headlines and you don’t have to look too hard to find examples.
New sources of non-dollar finance are emerging. There are new bilateral agreements to trade and lend in currencies other than the US dollar. Even more importantly, major oil trade buyers and sellers – Moscow and Riyadh as much as Beijing and New Delhi – are agreeing to trade it in non-dollar currencies. These deals are destroying one of the main pillars of dollar dominance since OPEC quadrupled and then doubled oil prices in the 1970s, giving countries around the world a major reason to demand and hold dollars.
However, many analysts continue to write as if the dollar’s dominance remains intact. Of course, these arguments are based on all sorts of false assumptions. For instance, they claim the dollar will continue dominating until another country’s currency replaces it or that this will only happen if other countries pursue forms of internationalization that mimic that of the US dollar today.
In a sense, the discussion is a little like that depicted in The Big Short, a film about a small band of bankers who bet against the housing market and the securities resting on it in the 2000s. Having made their bets, they waited for the market to collapse. It did. However, for a time, while mortgage defaults increased, the securities they are based on continued to rise in value. Prices were buoyed by investors primed by Alan Greenspan’s famous claim that there could not possibly be a housing market bubble. Nor were the securities downgraded. The rating agencies had not only given high scores to investment rubbish, they had come to believe their own lies. Only when the losses piled up and actually began to filter through the system in the form of payment shortfalls was the truth acknowledged.
Dollar being ‘gradually abandoned’ – IMF boss
De-dollarization also has its equivalent of the losses and payment shortfalls. Consider the recent Financial Times story, ‘China’s ‘men in black’ step up scrutiny of foreign corporate sleuths’. It describes the Chinese Ministry of State Security using “methods familiar to spies and private detectives” to crack down on “foreign corporate sleuths” performing “due diligence” on investments. They cite the process of checking whether a supply chain involved “forced labor from Xinjiang” as an example, stating that such due diligence is critical for attracting US investment.
The piece adds that earlier, “the due diligence groups felt they had ample space to operate and that authorities understood their importance,” but now Beijing has stepped up scrutiny of these scrutineers on grounds of national security. They lament that “spy companies were the gatekeepers for money,” but now, “[t]hat sense of a mutually beneficial relationship is gone.”
Now, the Chinese government has no shortage of reasons for stepping up its scrutiny of the information being gathered by foreign, particularly US entities. After all, it is the target of a US hybrid war whose fronts multiply daily. However, this is not the only significance of the story. It goes deeper than that and testifies to de-dollarization.
Since 1971 the US currency’s global role has rested on the claim that the dollar-denominated financial system was the world’s most sophisticated, with the broadest and deepest pools of capital from which the rest of the world’s investors could drink their fill. Certainly, the expansion of financial activity, also known as financialization, has been critical. By increasing financial demand for the dollar, it counteracted the Triffin Dilemma caused by the US deficits that provided the world with liquidity, meaning that the larger the US deficits, the greater the downward pressure on the dollar.
Yuan overtakes dollar in China’s cross-border payments
Needless to say, claims about the attractions of US finance were exaggerated. As far as most of the world was concerned, rather than providing beneficial productive investment, the US dollar-denominated financial system only unleashed torrents of short-term ‘hot’ money that has only profited mostly Western speculative investors, while regularly wreaking havoc on the rest of the world’s economies. Only China and a handful of other much smaller, favored, investment destinations benefited from a certain (easily overstated) amount of productive investment. Ironically, it was part of the hollowing out of US manufacturing through a little foreign direct investment and a lot of outsourcing.
Now, however, the US dollar-denominated system’s internal contradictions are mounting. While it is ceasing to provide its US and Western short-term investors with opportunities for speculative profit and to furnish the modest productive investment it once did.
The most fundamental of these mounting contradictions is the bind into which the rise of inflation puts the wizards at the Federal Reserve. On the one hand, the only way they can deal with inflation without eroding the power of capital is by raising interest rates, but that promises to crash the very financial structures of unproductive debt and speculation on which the wealth of the financial elite it serves relies. On the other hand, if the Fed does not raise interest rates, and permits inflation to run rampant, it will destroy the same system even more directly by undermining the value of the monetary unit, the US dollar, on which the entire system rests. What’s the point of accumulating your wealth in dollars if they are losing value at a rate close to or even higher than the rate at which you are accumulating it?
If the US financial system is losing its charm even for speculators, the very financialization over which it presides and on which the US dollar system rests has, over the last several decades, strangulated the alternative source of gain, the US productive economy. For decades, it was deprived of the long-term, patient investment that alone can make it dynamic. Today, therefore, neither the financial system nor the US productive economy will keep dollars flowing into the US dollar system. The former, which once yielded profits – via interest or speculation – by skimming off production incomes kept capital flowing into the US dollar system based on a reasonable expectation of gain. That situation has been eroded.
Gold leading ‘revolt against dollar’ – economist
It is no wonder that a recent Financial Times story comparing the US and European financial systems explained that, today the EU, with its proportionally larger base of productive corporations able to generate dividend income rather than merely uncertain and increasingly risky speculative gains, is likely to attract more money. And if Europe looks good compared to the US, China looks even better.
Money from around the world is flocking into Chinese IPOs (initial public offerings). By contrast, IPOs in the US and the UK, with the most financialized and productively weakened economies, have performed abysmally. The simple reason is that China still has a productive economy and far more of the sort of steady dividend-paying productive companies investors will now increasingly seek.
So, China cracking down on Western ‘due diligence’ sleuths is just another sign that the US financial system, and with it the dollar, is fast losing what few charms it once had. China may have tolerated a certain amount of espionage from Western financial investors when they constituted a major source of investment in China’s productive economy and US-China relations were miles better. Today, not only must it be more vigilant on national security grounds, with the US waging an ever-expanding hybrid war against China, its productive economy is winning the favor of the very capital that is fast falling out of love with the US financial system. China has no incentive to tolerate US “sleuthing.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2023-05-06/us-dollar-sovereign-debt-endgame
BY QUOTH THE RAVEN
SATURDAY, MAY 06, 2023 – 5:25
Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance
The regional bank crisis is continuing on, or ahead, of schedule. Not wanting to live in an echo chamber – but also mindful of the fact that I’m in the minority with how I think about the economy – I wanted to have a long-form discussion with two of my friends, Andy Schectman and Larry Lepard, to discuss the state of the U.S.
We talked about the blowoff valve for the economy – something I wrote about days ago – as gold and precious metals.
“When we take out 2100 with authority, it’s game on,” Larry says. “That’ll be a clear historical breakout. When that occurs, we’re going to squirt up to 2500 or 3000 very quickly.”
“Where else do you go beside gold and silver? Yes I own a precious metals company, but I try to be objective. Where do you go in the system where rising rates inversely affect stocks and bonds?” Schectman asks.
“The blowoff valve is the value of the currency and the easiest measure of that is gold,” Lepard adds.
We also discussed the regional banking crisis. “How is it that anyone isn’t freaking out that the Fed is basically bailing out the FDIC? The FDIC is, in essence, insolvent,” Andy Schectman asked me. “They’re going to blow up the regional banks.”
“Everyone is leaving the regional banks because Janet told us they won’t be safe”
We also discussed the state of the Fed and the global economy.
“The Fed is really playing with fire with this tight monetary policy. They are solving the problem in the short term but compounding the problem in the long term. They’re going to be forced into yield curve control,” Larry adds. “The next QE will take the Fed’s balance sheet from $9 trillion to $25 trillion.”
“Hyperinflation occurs when everybody becomes convinced that there is no way out other than printing the currency,” he adds. “I think it’s kind of inevitable. Everyone can read the signals and the signals are going to be there.”
We talked about how the BRICS nations are trying to move away from the U.S. dollar. “When you look at countries that have expressed interest in joining BRICS, they all have substantial gold holdings,” Andy told me about the global economy. “The numbers are increasing among those who want to join, there’s over 60 countries they have lined up in a queue [to join BRICS].”
“I do believe it’ll be a Sunday night. OPEC, the BRICS nations, Saudi Arabia – they come out and say on a Sunday night, we’re taking other currency for oil – and everything blows up Monday morning. It’s a tsunami of dollars,” Andy concluded. “The pieces are being put into place right now. Nobody is going to have time to react.”
“Why the hell would Central Banks be buying more gold now than ever? They’re frontrunning. They don’t care about the technicals, they’re using the Western suppression of gold prices to de-dollarize. What does that look like when the world completely sheds dollars because they no longer need them to buy oil?”
We also discussed:
- the end of the U.S. dollar’s dominance
- the geopolitical divide taking place
- gold & silver markets and manipulation
- politics into 2024
- banking collapses & equity markets
- the future of Bitcoin & crypto
You can listen to my full interview with Larry and Andy on Spotify here, Apple Podcasts here, and streaming on YouTube here:
Larry manages the EMA GARP Fund, a Boston based investment management firm. Their strategy is focused on providing “Monetary Debasement Insurance”. He has 38 years experience and an MBA from Harvard Business School. And he likes to curse. On Twitter he is @LawrenceLepard
Andy is the President & Owner of Miles Franklin Precious Metal Investments. Prior to starting Miles Franklin, Ltd. in 1989, Andrew became a Licensed Financial Planner, specializing in Swiss Franc Investments and alternative investments. At Miles Franklin Ltd., a company that has eclipsed $5 billion in sales, Andrew has developed an operation that maintains trust, collaboration, and ethical behavior, superior customer service and satisfaction to better serve their clients. He is responsible for overseeing the firm’s operations and business functions; including strategy and planning, account management, finance, and new business. He is andy@milesfranklin.com on email.
QTR’s Disclaimer: I am not a guru or an expert. I am an idiot writing a blog and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning and generally trade like a degenerate psychopath. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities or any asset class – just my opinions of me and my guests. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in and I’m sure have lost more than I’ve made in my time in markets. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. Positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it three times because it’s that important.
Contributor posts published on Zero Hedge do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Zero Hedge, and are not selected, edited or screened by Zero Hedge editors.
The nation officially hit its $31.4 trillion debt ceiling in January
https://www.rt.com/business/575636-us-debt-default-warning/
May 2, 2023
© Getty Images / WOWstockfootage
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned on Monday that the federal government could run short of cash to pay its bills as soon as next month without a debt limit increase.
“After reviewing recent federal tax receipts, our best estimate is that we will be unable to continue to satisfy all of the government’s obligations by early June, and potentially as early as June 1, if Congress does not raise or suspend the debt limit before that time,” Yellen wrote in a letter to House and Senate leaders.
She urged congressional leaders “to protect the full faith and credit of the United States by acting as soon as possible.”
“We have learned from past debt limit impasses that waiting until the last minute to suspend or increase the debt limit can cause serious harm to business and consumer confidence, raise short-term borrowing costs for taxpayers, and negatively impact the credit rating of the United States,” Yellen wrote.
“If Congress fails to increase the debt limit, it would cause severe hardship to American families, harm our global leadership position, and raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests,” she cautioned.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) also updated its forecast on Monday, warning there was a “significantly greater risk that the Treasury will run out of funds in early June” because of weaker-than-expected tax collections. The CBO had originally projected that a default could happen between July and September.
READ MORE: US debt default a matter of time – Musk
The warnings come after a months-long standstill in talks on the matter between the White House and Republicans in Congress.
Yellen has been voicing alarm since January, when the United States hit its $31.4 trillion debt ceiling. At the time she notified Congress that the Treasury had begun resorting to “extraordinary measures” to avoid a federal government default.
On Monday, President Joe Biden called all four congressional leaders and invited them to a May 9 meeting on the issue.
US officials are making urgent efforts to rescue the struggling First Republic Bank, as attempts by private-sector companies have thus far failed, Reuters reported on Friday, citing sources.
People familiar with the matter told the outlet that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Treasury Department, and Federal Reserve have arranged meetings with financial firms in recent days in an effort to hand the distressed lender a lifeline.
Sources claimed that the step could pave the way for more parties, including banks and private equity companies, to become involved. However, they added it was unclear if the government was considering participating in a private-sector rescue of First Republic. They also highlighted that US officials view a private-sector deal as preferable, rather than First Republic falling into FDIC receivership.
“We are engaged in discussions with multiple parties about our strategic options while continuing to serve our clients,” First Republic stated.
A dramatic sell-off has wiped out 75% of the bank’s stock value this week, following the disclosure on Monday that it had lost more than $100 billion of deposits in the first quarter of the year. The San Francisco-based lender has struggled to stay afloat since the US banking sector was hit by a major crisis stemming from the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March.
Silicon Valley Bank, a significant player serving the tech and startup sectors, was shut down by regulators last month shortly after California-based, crypto-focused Silvergate liquidated its bank. New York-based Signature Bank was also closed down by regulators due to liquidity concerns.
READ MORE: US banking crisis fears mount as major lender struggles
To help First Republic avoid the same fate, leading US financial institutions agreed last month on a $30 billion injection into the troubled regional lender. Efforts to inspire confidence in the banking system thus far appear to have failed, however. Shares of First Republic are down 97% this year.
MONDAY, APR 24, 2023
Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
Our leaders were able to successfully kick the can down the road for a long time, but now many of our long-term problems are becoming short-term problems, and the economic outlook for the remainder of 2023 is extremely bleak. But none of the economic hardships that we are experiencing at this moment should shock any of us. The truth is that we were warned about all of these things well ahead of time.
Many independent voices have been warning us that there would be severe consequences for the exceedingly foolish economic decisions that our leaders were making, and now those severe consequences are starting to play out right in front of our eyes.
The following are 5 economic disasters we were warned about in advance that are happening right now…
#1 We were warned that a great commercial real estate crisis would be coming, and now it is here. In fact, we just witnessed another massive default…
With recent stress in the regional banking sector, sentiment in US commercial real estate (CRE) – and especially the office sector – has turned negative as investors prepare for potential spillover effects (with JPM, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs all joining the gloom parade), especially as high-profile defaults continue to make headlines as borrowers face higher debt service costs and refinancing becomes much harder ahead of a $400 billion CRE debt maturities this year alone.
The latest headline fueling concerns about a potential CRE crisis involves a fund belonging to CRE giant Brookfield defaulting on a $161.4 million mortgage for twelve office buildings in Washington, DC.
According to Bloomberg, the loan was transferred to a special servicer working with “the borrower to execute a pre-negotiation agreement and to determine the path forward.”
#2 We were warned that there would be widespread layoffs as economic conditions in the United States deteriorated. Sadly, that is now happening all around us. For example, on Monday accounting firm Ernst & Young announced that they will be laying off thousands of highly paid workers…
Ernst & Young said Monday that it would eliminate roughly 3,000 jobs from its US workforce as it pivots to address shifts in demand and “overcapacity” in sections of its business.
The cuts represent less than 5% of the US firm’s total workforce. EY described the workforce reduction as “part of the ongoing management of our business” and said it didn’t stem from the firm’s recent failure to implement a global breakup.
#3 We were warned that the largest corporate debt bubble in the history of the world would eventually burst, and now corporations are beginning to default on their debts at a rate that should deeply alarm all of us…
More companies around the world defaulted on their debts in the first three months of this year than in any quarter since late 2020, when businesses were still hamstrung by restrictions to stop the spread of Covid.
In a report Tuesday, credit rating agency Moody’s said 33 of the corporations it rates defaulted on their debts in the first quarter, the highest level since the last quarter of 2020 when 47 companies defaulted. Almost half, or 15 companies, defaulted last month — the highest monthly count since December 2020.
Defaulting firms included Silicon Valley Bank, which collapsed in March, its holding company SVB Financial Group and Signature Bank.
#4 We were warned that we would witness a dramatic surge in bankruptcies in 2023, and that is precisely what is happening…
Bankruptcy filings across the United States rose for the third straight month in March in all major industries. A total of 42,368 new bankruptcies were filed last month, according to data from Epiq Bankruptcy, a provider of U.S. bankruptcy court data, technology, and services.
This is 17 percent up from the 36,068 filings in March 2022 and is the highest number of monthly bankruptcy filings since April 2021.
Data from S&P Global Market Intelligence showed 71 corporate bankruptcy petitions in March, a jump from 58 in the previous month. This is the highest monthly total since July 2020 and the fourth straight month of increases.
#5 We were warned that the rest of the world would eventually start rejecting the U.S. dollar, and now “de-dollarization” is happening at a “stunning” pace…
The dollar is losing its reserve status at a faster pace than generally accepted as many analysts have failed to account for last year’s wild exchange rate moves, according to Stephen Jen.
The greenback’s share in global reserves slid last year at 10 times the average speed of the past two decades as a number of countries looked for alternatives after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered sanctions, Jen and his Eurizon SLJ Capital Ltd. colleague Joana Freire wrote in a note. Adjusting for exchange rate movements, the dollar has lost about 11% of its market share since 2016 and double that amount since 2008, they said.
“The dollar suffered a stunning collapse in 2022 in its market share as a reserve currency, presumably due to its muscular use of sanctions,” Jen and Freire wrote. “Exceptional actions taken by the US and its allies against Russia have startled large reserve-holding countries,” most of which are emerging economies from the so-called Global South, they said.
Unfortunately, we are still only in the very early stages of this economic meltdown.
The general population is starting to understand that things have gone horribly wrong, and a CNBC survey that was just released discovered that Americans “have never been more negative about the economy” than they are at this moment…
Amid persistent inflation, higher interest rates and recession worries, Americans have never been more negative about the economy, according to the latest CNBC All-America Economic Survey.
A record 69% of the public holds negative views about the economy both now and in the future, the highest percentage in the survey’s 17-year history.
Even during the darkest days of 2008 and 2009 Americans were more optimistic about the future of the economy than they are right now.
Just think about that.
We are in really deep trouble.
Of course, this new economic crisis will take some time to fully play out.
But it has officially arrived.
The months ahead are going to be filled with economic pain, and that is going to cause a tremendous amount of turmoil throughout our entire society.
The billionaire’s warning comes as the White House and Republicans in Congress are at an impasse over raising the debt ceiling
In January, the Treasury Department notified Congress of the start of “extraordinary measures” until June 5 in order to continue paying the government’s obligations as the US has reached its $31.4 trillion debt limit.
https://www.rt.com/business/575016-elon-musk-us-debt-default/
19 Apr, 2023
© AFP / Patrick Pleul / POOL / AFP
Tesla and Twitter chief executive Elon Musk, who has been calling for US government spending reductions, said on Wednesday that a debt default was just a question of time.
“Given Federal expenditures, it is a matter of when, not if, we default,” Musk wrote responding to a Twitter post by the White House that the Republican plan may be to default on US debt.
Earlier this week, US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy warned in a speech at the New York Stock Exchange that the US debt is unsustainable and poses a threat to the nation. He said that Republicans would not allow the country to default on its debt, taking a jab at President Biden for refusing to negotiate on cost-cutting measures.
McCarthy added that the House of Representatives would soon vote on a bill to raise the debt ceiling through 2023.
US President Joe Biden urged the Republicans to first release their proposed budget, with the White House stressing it would not negotiate the debt ceiling until the GOP releases its counterproposal to the administration’s budget plan, which was put out in March.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre alleged late last month that the Republicans were threatening to wreak havoc on US economy, saying that it was time for the GOP to “stop playing games” and agree to pass a “clean” debt ceiling bill.
In January, the Treasury Department notified Congress of the start of “extraordinary measures” until June 5 in order to continue paying the government’s obligations as the US has reached its $31.4 trillion debt limit. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen then called on lawmakers to “act promptly” to increase borrowing limits in order to avoid a default.
Bob Nardelli, the former CEO of Home Depot, is warning about more bankruptcies. He said a lot of corporations in the United States could be close to filing for bankruptcy and the economy won’t be able to handle it.
Bankruptcy filings across the United States rose for the third straight month in March in all major industries. A total of 42,368 new bankruptcies were filed last month, according to data from Epiq Bankruptcy, a provider of U.S. bankruptcy court data, technology, and services.
https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/former-corporate-ceo-warns-a-lot-of-bankruptcies-are-coming
by Mac Slavo
Apr 18, 2023
Bob Nardelli, the former CEO of Home Depot, is warning about more bankruptcies. He said a lot of corporations in the United States could be close to filing for bankruptcy and the economy won’t be able to handle it.
Nardelli blames lawmakers for their delay in coming to terms regarding the country’s debt ceiling. He says it’s all the fault of Congress’ inability to work together to raise the U.S. debt limit. That inaction is creating a burden on businesses, saying that he is “definitely worried” about the situation, according to a report by The Epoch Times.
“I think we’re in a very complex environment. And, of course, this debt issue only adds to that. It adds to the certainty of uncertainty, what’s going to happen,” Nardelli said
“I think we’re going to see a lot of bankruptcies. Like Bed, Bath, and Beyond. We got Walmart not only laying people off but closing stores. We got Accenture laying people off. We got Amazon closing distribution centers. So, I think there’s a tremendous-mixed message,” Nardelli said in an April 14 interview with Fox Business.
At present, the “complexity” of the American economy is “different than anything I have seen in my 52 years,” he continued.
Bankruptcy filings across the United States rose for the third straight month in March in all major industries. A total of 42,368 new bankruptcies were filed last month, according to data from Epiq Bankruptcy, a provider of U.S. bankruptcy court data, technology, and services.
This is 17 percent up from the 36,068 filings in March 2022 and is the highest number of monthly bankruptcy filings since April 2021. –The Epoch Times
Lending activity by banks also suffered the biggest plunge ever in the two weeks ending March 29th. Commercial lending in the country declined by $105 billion during this period—the highest since 1973. The collapse in lending was led by declining real estate loans as well as industrial and commercial loans.
According to financial analyst Andreas Steno Larsen, the U.S. economy is going to face some pretty hard times in the coming months. “Evidence is gathering that the SVB-fueled banking stress indeed will turn into a recession, but instead of a fast and rapid liquidity-driven recession, we are rather slow-walking into a credit crunch over summer,” he wrote in an April 9 post.
Job cuts and inflation are also playing roles in the systematic and controlled demolition of the U.S. economy.
Interest payments and the shift to clean energy will add to government spending, the organization warns
https://www.rt.com/business/574615-us-national-debt-rises/
April 14, 2023
© Getty Images / dblight
US public debt will continue to rise in the coming years amid increased government borrowing, the International Monetary Fund said in its Fiscal Monitor report released on Wednesday.
IMF economists believe the rise will come partly because Washington is spending more on healthcare and social security, as well as clean energy projects and other domestic economic policies.
The US debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to be 122.2% this year, just slightly above 121.7% in 2022. It is expected to rise further to 136.2% of GDP in 2028, up from 107.4% in 2018, and higher than the Covid pandemic-era peak of 133.5% in 2020, according to the IMF.
The agency noted that the US and China are the two main drivers of the global increase in public debt. It cautioned that expanding government borrowing and spending could exacerbate inflationary pressures, undermining the efforts of the central banks.
“By the end of our projection horizon – 2028 – public debt in the world is expected to reach almost 100% of GDP,” the head of the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department, Vitor Gaspar, told the Financial Times, adding that this is “back to the record levels set in the year of the pandemic.”
The IMF also said that recent banking problems in the US and Switzerland have added to the risks of a global financial crisis, which could put even more pressure on public sector balance sheets.
Policy and the cabal’s money printers have absolutely corrupted the world – the rich get richer, while the poor get poorer
In the next few years, the financial system will crash under its own weight in spite of and also due to the coming biggest money-printing avalanche that the world has ever experienced.
Nixon’s closing of the gold window in 1971 was the signal that this currency system was going to end like all currency systems in history. And for the ones who haven’t studied the history of money, let me tell you that NO FIAT MONEY HAS EVER SURVIVED IN HISTORY IN ITS ORIGINAL FORM. So with all money going to ZERO, it has never been a question of if but only of when the dollar-based currency system would die.
https://www.sott.net/article/479008-The-Everything-Collapse
Egon von Greyerz
Gold Switzerland
Sun, 02 Apr 2023
Sadly, gold is now on its way to heights which are unthinkable for most people.
To all the people who have asked me over the years why gold doesn’t go up, I have replied:
“Don’t wish for gold to go up substantially for when it does, your quality of life will deteriorate remarkably.”
And we are now at the point in the world when this is likely to happen.
Let me be clear, now is the time to protect whatever assets you have in order to avoid the total asset destruction that is coming next. More about this later in this article.
THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM WILL NOT SURVIVE
I came to the conclusion early in this century that a sick financial system was not going to survive the infestation of vermin in the form of debt that started just over 50 years ago.
Nixon’s closing of the gold window in 1971 was the signal that this currency system was going to end like all currency systems in history. And for the ones who haven’t studied the history of money, let me tell you that NO FIAT MONEY HAS EVER SURVIVED IN HISTORY IN ITS ORIGINAL FORM. So with all money going to ZERO, it has never been a question of if but only of when the dollar-based currency system would die.
Dalai Lama said:
“If there is a solution to a problem, there is no need to worry.
And if there is no solution, there is no need to worry”
But in this case, my view is THAT WE REALLY NEED TO WORRY.
So sadly, his wisdom doesn’t apply to the global problem that the world is now facing.
IS THE UKRAINE WAR COMING TO AN END
In early January this year I wrote an article called “OMINOUS MILITARY & FINANCIAL NUCLEAR THREATS COULD ERUPT IN 2023.”
I have covered the threat of a major war in many articles in the last 12 months for example “Will nuclear war, debt collapse or energy depletion finish the world“
Although it is too early to be really optimistic, it now looks like my prediction that Russia will never lose this war is getting closer.
Ukraine is making the Battle of Bakhmut into their Stalingrad last stand (WWII 1943).
Ukraine has committed the majority of their remaining forces to win this battle against Russia. If they lose in Bakhmut, even Zelensky believes that this could be the end for Ukraine.
Here is the Associated Press (AP) article in which Zelensky is hinting that Ukraine could lose this war –
“Ukraine’s Zelensky: Any Russian victory could be perilous.”
If Bakhmut fell to Russian forces, Putin would “sell this victory to the West, to his society, to China to Iran” Zelensky said in the AP interview.
“If he will feel some blood – smell that we are weak – he will push, push, push!”
Scott Ritter, the former intelligence officer and UN weapons’ inspector just gave this interview in which he believes that Ukraine is on the point of losing the war:
THE END OF US HEGEMONY
At the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, I and some others made the analogy with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 (which I remember well) when Kennedy gave an ultimatum to Khrushchev to withdraw the nuclear missiles pointing towards the US or face war.
In the same way as with Cuba, Russia was never going to accept Ukraine becoming a Nato country. But sadly the US Neocons have seen this conflict as the last chance to save the US military, political and economic hegemony from total collapse. Defeating Russia was the last stand for the US. But it now looks like they will fail which seals the fate of the US empire.
The US neocons forced a much too willing Europe to not only agree to the sanctions against Russia but also make direct contributions to the war both with money and equipment.
This fatal mistake by Europe and especially Germany is totally crushing the European economy. But what the US neocons never understood is that the US sanctions would affect the whole world and in particular, the debt-infested US and the West.
At the end of an economic era, unexpected events take place which will seal the fate of a crumbling empire.
THE END OF THE CENTRAL BANKER
The script for the first 22+ years of the 2000s couldn’t be more perfect as the final glutinous feast of Gargantua The Central Banker. (Gargantua – book by Rabelais 1543)
Central bankers have been the principal creators of the current crisis which had its beginnings over 100 years ago.
Significant events in the 2000s created by fallacious Central Bank policies:
- 2000-2 Market collapse: Tech stocks down 80%
- 2006-8 Subprime banking crisis: Dow down 54%, massive money printing
- 2009-21 Stocks & asset markets exploding: Dow up 6X, Nasdaq up 16X
- 2006-20 Manipulation of rates: US 10yr treasury down from 5.4% to 0.5%
- 2000-23 US Debt explosion: Up 3.5X from $27t in 2000 to $95t in 2023
- 2000-23 Global debt explosion: Up 3X from $100t in 2000 to $300t in 2023
- 2020-23 Real inflation US EU: Up from 0% in 2020 to 10%+ in 2023
The extreme moves and volatility exemplified in the table above have nothing to do with free markets. They are the manifest consequences of shameless manipulation of markets and market conditions by Central Banks. Such extreme moves could never happen if markets followed nature’s laws and the laws of supply and demand.
For example, in an unmanipulated market, it would be totally impossible for credit to expand exponentially and interest rates to remain at zero. The basic principle of supply and demand would force the cost of money up when demand for credit expands. And if there was no demand, the cost of money would obviously come down to the level where demand resumes.
If markets were allowed to follow the natural rhythm of nature, they would be self-correcting without extreme tops and bottoms.
This is so basic that a 7-year-old would understand it. But the Central Bankers choose to ignore it.
The obvious consequence of markets flowing naturally without intervention would mean that we could get rid of Central Bankers. How wonderful! No Central Banks, No Manipulation and No Extremes in the economy or markets.
Sadly, such simple solutions are the exception in history with greed and power driving man rather than reason and logic.
The bankers clearly knew what they needed to do when they met on Jekyll Island in 1910 in order to control the US and the global monetary system. At this meeting, they schemed to create the Fed in 1913 and followed the axiom of Mayer Amschel Rothschild a German banker in the late 1700s: “Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.”
From Amschel Rothschild to Jekyll Island to Nixon closing the gold window in 1971, the Central bankers and bankers have successfully taken control of issuing exponentially larger amounts of money and debt for their own benefit as well as for a very small elite who could take advantage.
Having created a structure that was above the law as Amschel said, they have so far been in total control of their own destiny with governments being dictated to by the central bankers and bankers. Thus in 2008, the Fed and a number of virtually bankrupt banks, including JP Morgan, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays etc dictated their own rescue terms to the US and other governments.
But we must remember that 2006-9 was just a rehearsal. The finale is starting now. The debt which has built up has now reached levels which means the financial system is now too big to survive.
Three US banks and one Swiss went under 2 weeks ago although two of the four were rescued temporarily at a high cost. The Swiss government could not afford to let Credit Suisse go under and is supporting the UBS takeover of the Credit Suisse at a potential extraordinary cost of CHF 209 billion.
Central banks are on standby to stop the next bank run. Many expected Deutsche Bank to be next. Governments will stop major banks from going under for as long as they can, to stop global contagion. But they will of course fail.
The FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) currently has a capital of $128 billion dollars to support a total of $18 trillion deposits. So with 0.7% cover, it is guaranteed that the US government will soon need to step in as the next lot of US banks fail. Same in Europe where most EU banks and the ECB are in terrible shape.
Total central bank assets are $ 25 trillion which is less than 10% of global debt before derivatives. Default rates in coming years are likely to exceed 50% which means much more money printing to come.
ALL ASSETS ARE PRICED AT THE MARGIN – PROTECT YOURSELVES
As the current asset bubbles are coming to an end, the exit doors will be totally blocked by panicking sellers.
All assets are priced at the margin and even more so since the current asset bubbles have been created by the most gigantic debt bonanza. To take an extreme example, if there is one seller and no buyer in the housing market, the price of all houses will go to zero. The same is true for the stock market.
But as investors run for the exit, most will not get through since there will at some point be no buyers at any price.
This is how the price of stocks, bonds or property can go down by 75% to 100% in real terms. Some market observers say that this has never happened in history so it won’t happen today either. Yes, of course, I can be wrong, but what we must remember is that nor have we ever in history had a global debt and asset bubble of this magnitude. So we are in unchartered waters and conventional wisdom doesn’t apply and is just conventional without any wisdom.
In any case, investors shouldn’t worry how much their assets could decline. Instead, they should worry about protecting themselves against the risk of this happening.
Firstly investors should go as liquid as possible. Secondly, debts must be repaid. Nobody will want the bank to take their assets at a bargain price.
Short-term government bonds could offer adequate protection. But medium and long term, governments will at best destroy the value of the currency and at worst also default.
Tangible assets are undervalued and a good investment to own.
Physical gold and silver held outside the banking system is the ultimate protection just as in any crisis.
It is absolutely critical to buy gold and silver now before investors panic into these metals. There is very little gold and silver available to buy. Currently, all production is absorbed and any increase in demand cannot be met by increased supply but only by much higher prices.
But remember that gold and silver are also priced at the margin, so as demand increases, we could reach a situation when there is no silver or gold available at any price.
So my very strong advice is not to wait for the herd since you then are likely to be left with no silver or gold and no protection.
But in the end, as I have stressed, the $2 quadrillion debt and derivative liabilities, cannot be saved.
In the next few years, the financial system will crash under its own weight in spite of and also due to the coming biggest money-printing avalanche that the world has ever experienced.
Previously, it was being reported that U.S. banks are facing unrealized losses of 620 billion dollars on the bonds that they are holding due to rapidly rising interest rates, but now we are being told that it is actually 780 billion dollars. And when you throw in unrealized losses on their loan portfolios, the unrealized losses that our banks are facing come to a grand total of somewhere around 1.7 trillion dollars…
Michael Snyder
April 3, 2023
If our banking system can’t find a way to turn things around, our entire economy will soon be in a world of hurt. When banks get into trouble, they start getting really tight with their money. That means fewer mortgages, fewer commercial real estate loans, fewer auto loans and fewer credit cards being issued. So it should greatly concern all of us that U.S. banks are bleeding deposits at an absolutely staggering pace right now. During the week ending March 15th, 98.4 billion dollars was pulled out of U.S. banks. That was really bad, but we just learned that things got even worse the next week. During the week ending March 22nd, 126 billion dollars was pulled out of U.S. banks…
Depositors drained another $126 billion from U.S. banks during the week ending March 22, according to new Federal Reserve data. This time the outflow came from the nation’s largest institutions.
But this banking crisis did not begin in March as many have been led to believe.
Over the past year, well over a trillion dollars has been pulled out of U.S. banks, and this has created a tremendous amount of financial stress…
The challenge the deposit outflows create for all banks is that if they raise rates on their deposits to keep customers, that could make them less profitable. But if they lose too many customers, as Silicon Valley Bank did, they give up critical funding and may have to sell assets at a loss to cover withdrawals.
Silicon Valley Bank customers withdrew $42 billion in one day, leaving the bank with a negative cash balance of $958 million.
When lots of depositors start pulling their money out, banks can be forced to sell assets in order to have enough cash.
Unfortunately, U.S. banks are sitting on a giant mountain of unrealized losses right now.
Previously, it was being reported that U.S. banks are facing unrealized losses of 620 billion dollars on the bonds that they are holding due to rapidly rising interest rates, but now we are being told that it is actually 780 billion dollars.
And when you throw in unrealized losses on their loan portfolios, the unrealized losses that our banks are facing come to a grand total of somewhere around 1.7 trillion dollars…
A study released on March 13th took a deeper look at the unrealized losses banks were likely holding. The study found that actual losses to banks’ security holdings were $780 billion, not $620 billion as estimated by the FDIC.
But the authors went deeper, rightly noting, “Loans, like securities, also lose value when interest rates go up.”
They found that total unrealized losses as of December 2022 were $1.7 trillion. In a chilling warning, the authors noted that “the losses from the interest rate increase are comparable to the total equity in the entire banking system.” We’re not out of this banking crisis. In fact, it may be just the beginning.
Ouch.
The Federal Reserve was warned not to raise interest rates so quickly.
But they did, and now they have broken our entire banking system.
In fact, Nouriel Roubini is warning that “most U.S. banks are technically near insolvency” at this stage…
Roubini also points out that the rise in interest rates has led to a decrease in the market value of banks’ other assets, and when accounting for these factors, U.S. banks’ unrealized losses actually amount to $1.75 trillion, or 80% of their capital.
According to Roubini, the “unrealized” nature of these losses stems from the current regulatory regime, which allows banks to value securities and loans at their face value rather than their true market value.
He asserts that most U.S. banks are technically near insolvency
We are in far more trouble than most people realize.
The truth is that we are not just heading into a “recession”.
What we are potentially facing is a meltdown of the entire system, and it is going to take quite a while for this crisis to fully play out.
But even now, symptoms are starting to erupt all around us.
For example, McDonald’s just decided to close all of their U.S. offices while they decide which of their employees still get to work for them…
McDonald’s is closing its U.S. offices for a few days this week as the company prepares to inform employees about layoffs as part of a broader restructuring, according to a report.
The Chicago-based burger chain said in an internal email that U.S. corporate employees and some staff abroad should work from home while the company notifies people of their job status virtually, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
Like so many other big companies are doing these days, McDonald’s is going to be laying off people by email.
What a horrible thing to do.
Of course, when people get laid off they can respond very emotionally, and confrontations between management and those that have been fired can get pretty intense.
So informing people that they are terminated when they are out of the office is a way to avoid messy situations. But I still think that it is a really heartless thing to do.
There is so little loyalty in the corporate world today. You can pour your heart and soul into a company for decades, and then one day some numbers cruncher comes along and suddenly decides that you have become expendable.
We have seen so many layoffs in recent months, and many more are on the way.
And at this point, a whopping 72 percent of all Americans believe that the economy is getting worse…
A new survey shows that 83% of American adults view current economic conditions as “only fair” or “poor,” reported Gallup. In addition, 72% think economic conditions are getting “worse.”
Unfortunately, what most people don’t realize is that what we have been through so far is just the tip of the iceberg.
All of the bubbles have started to burst, and our entire system is beginning to tremble violently.
So I would encourage you to hold on tight because we have got a very bumpy ride ahead of us.
Sanctioned businessman Oleg Deripaska says exorbitant government spending will lead to a financial crash
https://www.rt.com/business/573535-deripaska-warning-us-economy-debt/
March 25, 2023
© Global Look Press / Igor Russak
One of Russia’s richest men has warned that the American economy is currently in a very challenging situation, due to global overreach. Tycoon Oleg Deripaska made the comments using his Telegram channel on Friday.
He believes the underlying economy cannot take the weight of the country’s enormous government debt and exorbitant spending.
“Reckless militarization, sanctions against everyone, and military adventures around the world have already cost this country almost $33 trillion,” said the billionaire, who was sanctioned by the US last year. However, he provided no details on where this figure came from.
Deripaska noted that the US has never come so close to the bankruptcy of public finances.
“Printing more money is useless. Therefore, they will quietly discuss how to raise the debt ceiling in Congress,” he explained.
“Lots of heads will roll this spring in Washington,” he said, adding that this will pave the way for peace in 2025.
READ MORE: US economy heading for ‘train wreck,’ billionaire warns
According to the founder of the world’s second-largest aluminum company, Rusal, Washington also faces the problem of unsecured deposits in regional banks that amount to nearly $17 trillion.
Earlier this week, unnamed sources told Bloomberg that the US Treasury Department is reviewing whether federal regulators have sufficient emergency authority to temporarily insure deposits greater than the current $250,000 cap on most accounts. The measure is reportedly being sought by the Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America, which includes banks with assets of as much as $100 billion.
The US banking sector has recently been hit by a wave of failures after the collapses earlier this month of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. The turmoil has spread to Europe, engulfing Switzerland’s second-largest lender Credit Suisse, which was forced to merge with rival investment bank UBS.
According to Deripaska, the emergency rescue won’t stop the crisis, which will derail UBS Group as well.
The number of insolvent firms in Sweden increased sharply in January, the outlet reports
“During fall, we saw bankruptcies in consumer-facing businesses such as retail, hotels and restaurants,” UC economist Johanna Blome said. “Now we see that the largest increase is happening in sectors that are closely connected to industry and longer-term investments.”
https://www.rt.com/business/570799-sweden-bankruptcies-soar/
Feb 3, 2023
© Getty Images / Andia / Contributor
The number of bankruptcies in Sweden surged to the highest level in at least a decade in January amid growing pressure on construction companies from an ongoing housing-market crunch, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
According to the media outlet, citing credit reference agency UC, the number of bankruptcy filings rose to 622, marking a 47% increase from a year earlier.
Sweden has been struggling with its worst housing-price slump in three decades. The situation has contributed to a surge in defaults in the construction sector, with 130 builders filing for bankruptcy last month. Home prices have reportedly fallen by 16% from a peak in the first quarter of last year, with economists projecting the slide to continue.
“During fall, we saw bankruptcies in consumer-facing businesses such as retail, hotels and restaurants,” UC economist Johanna Blome said. “Now we see that the largest increase is happening in sectors that are closely connected to industry and longer-term investments.”
A severe slump in Sweden’s real estate sector has damaged the Nordic region’s largest economy. According to estimates from Sweden’s National Board of Housing, new home construction will fall dramatically by 44% this year to 33,000. Meanwhile, a drop in construction could further weigh on economic activity, the report warned.
READ MORE: Sweden facing worst economic slump in EU – Bloomberg
The Swedish government announced at the end of 2022 that the country was entering a recession that would last until 2025. The nation’s GDP is expected to fall by 0.7%, while unemployment is forecast to rise to 7.8% in 2023 and 8.2% in 2024.
This is beyond obscene and people accept it without question.
Tales from the Conspiratum 
