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20 Signs That The Next Great Economic Depression Has Already Started In Europe
Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,
The next Great Depression is already happening - it just hasn't reached the United States yet. Things in Europe just continue to get worse and worse, and yet most people in the United States still don't get it. All the time I have people ask me when the "economic collapse" is going to happen. Well, for ages I have been warning that the next major wave of the ongoing economic collapse would begin in Europe, and that is exactly what is happening. In fact, both Greece and Spain already have levels of unemployment that are greater than anything the U.S. experienced during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Pay close attention to what is happening over there, because it is coming here too. You see, the truth is that Europe is a lot like the United States. We are both drowning in unprecedented levels of debt, and we both have overleveraged banking systems that resemble a house of cards. The reason why the U.S. does not look like Europe yet is because we have thrown all caution to the wind. The Federal Reserve is printing money as if there is no tomorrow and the U.S. government is savagely destroying the future that our children and our grandchildren were supposed to have by stealing more than 100 million dollars from them every single hour of every single day. We have gone "all in" on kicking the can down the road even though it means destroying the future of America. But the alternative scares the living daylights out of our politicians. When nations such as Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy tried to slow down the rate at which their debts were rising, the results were absolutely devastating. A full-blown economic depression is raging across southern Europe and it is rapidly spreading into northern Europe. Eventually it will spread to the rest of the globe as well.
The following are 20 signs that the next Great Depression has already started in Europe...
#1 The unemployment rate in France has surged to 10.6 percent, and the number of jobless claims in that country recently set a new all-time record.
#2 Unemployment in the eurozone as a whole is sitting at an all-time record of 12 percent.
#3 Two years ago, Portugal's unemployment rate was about 12 percent. Today, it is about 17 percent.
#4 The unemployment rate in Spain has set a new all-time record of 27 percent. Even during the Great Depression of the 1930s the United States never had unemployment that high.
#5 The unemployment rate among those under the age of 25 in Spain is an astounding 57.2 percent.
#6 The unemployment rate in Greece has set a new all-time record of 27.2 percent. Even during the Great Depression of the 1930s the United States never had unemployment that high.
#7 The unemployment rate among those under the age of 25 in Greece is a whopping 59.3 percent.
#8 French car sales in March were 16 percent lower than they were one year earlier.
#9 German car sales in March were 17 percent lower than they were one year earlier.
#10 In the Netherlands, consumer debt is now up to about 250 percent of available income.
#11 Industrial production in Italy has fallen by an astounding 25 percent over the past five years.
#12 The number of Spanish firms filing for bankruptcy is 45 percent higher than it was a year ago.
#13 Since 2007, the value of non-performing loans in Europe has increased by 150 percent.
#14 Bank withdrawals in Cyprus during the month of March were double what they were in February even though the banks were closed for half the month.
#15 Due to an absolutely crippling housing crash, there are approximately 3 million vacant homes in Spain today.
#16 Things have gotten so bad in Spain that entire apartment buildings are being overwhelmed by squatters...
A 285-unit apartment complex in Parla, less than half an hour’s drive from Madrid, should be an ideal target for investors seeking cheap property in Spain. Unfortunately, two thirds of the building generates zero revenue because it’s overrun by squatters.
“This is happening all over the country,” said Jose Maria Fraile, the town’s mayor, who estimates only 100 apartments in the block built for the council have rental contracts, and not all of those tenants are paying either. “People lost their jobs, they can’t pay mortgages or rent so they lost their homes and this has produced a tide of squatters.”
#17 As I wrote about the other day, child hunger has become so rampant in Greece that teachers are reporting that hungry children are begging their classmates for food.
#18 The debt to GDP ratio in Italy is now up to 136 percent.
#19 25 percent of all banking assets in the UK are in banks that are leveraged at least 40 to 1.
#20 German banking giant Deutsche Bank has more than 55 trillion euros (which is more than 72 trillion dollars) of exposure to derivatives. But the GDP of Germany for an entire year is only about 2.7 trillion euros.
Yes, U.S. stocks have been doing great so far this year, but the truth is that the stock market has become completely and totally divorced from economic reality. When it does catch up with the economic fundamentals, it will probably happen very rapidly like we saw back in 2008.
Our politicians can try to kick the can down the road for as long as they can, but at some point the consequences of our foolish decisions will hunt us down and overtake us. The following is what Peter Schiff had to say about this coming crisis the other day...
"The crisis is imminent," Schiff said. "I don't think Obama is going to finish his second term without the bottom dropping out. And stock market investors are oblivious to the problems."
"We're broke, Schiff added. "We owe trillions. Look at our budget deficit; look at the debt to GDP ratio, the unfunded liabilities. If we were in the Eurozone, they would kick us out."
Schiff points out that the market gains experienced recently, with the Dow first topping 14,000 on its way to setting record highs, are giving investors a false sense of security.
"It's not that the stock market is gaining value... it's that our money is losing value. And so if you have a debased currency... a devalued currency, the price of everything goes up. Stocks are no exception," he said.
"The Fed knows that the U.S. economy is not recovering," he noted. "It simply is being kept from collapse by artificially low interest rates and quantitative easing. As that support goes, the economy will implode."
So please don't think that we are any different from Europe.
If the United States government started only spending the money that it brings in, we would descend into an economic depression tomorrow.
The only way that we can continue to live out the economic fantasy that we see all around us is by financially abusing our children and our grandchildren.
The U.S. economy has become a miserable junkie that is completely and totally addicted to reckless money printing and gigantic mountains of debt.
If we stop printing money and going into unprecedented amounts of debt we are finished.
If we continue printing money and going into unprecedented amounts of debt we are finished.
Either way, this is all going to end very, very badly.
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Funny, I listened to family planning exotic vacations this weekend. Two different groups planning their second vacation of the year. They never mentioned the economic situation, the stagnant economy, the insolvent banks. They talked about the new iGadgets and iPad or Samsung and their new phones; or what they watched on HD TV.
I was incredulous and felt like the kid pressing his nose against the restaurant window as champagne was poured inside. These people were either public sector pensioners or public sector employees. They were seemingly oblivious to the situation and were engaged in that superficial banter about what they were buying or vacationing.
That is how surreal this Depression is in the UK where Magic Money has destroyed Savers and rewarded Spenders and wiped out SMEs and kept Public Sector Managers well funded. Socialism on Bank Credit
Well, somebody has to spend.
I believe the central bankers know and are going to implode the markets and then roll out the next gerneration of uber-currency. Pain first, so that everyone is forced to accept the future reality.
Me too. Means to an end. Redevelopment.
While the place falls apart, the long lines of suddenly possessionless US citizens will be weeded out through a system of data collection. Everything move we have made is probably on record and will be used to determine who we are. This will prove to be a reason for great concer when it is too late to do anything about it.
How did we get so fucking stupid. We almost deserve this for taking so much for granted. MSM captured the audience. It took the comedians to shine a light on the dark side of life in the 21st century.
What else did you expect from puppet politics.
"...full-blown economic depression is raging across southern Europe..."
Are economic depressions capable of "raging"? I tend to think of them as more gelatinous in nature, like Michael Moore but with extra gloom. Uncontainable & moving at the speed of peanut butter, they eventually consume all challengers, leaving naught but the dry, moldy crumbs of bitterness & hate in their wake.
Happy Wednesday!
Unlike Michael Moore, however, depressions have no hilarious aspects to their earnestness.
great article
the money again, its structure.
it is like the mountain climber
who gets caught in craggy crack, the rock and a hard
place and is stuck when suddenly and
magically fans appear all around him and
they are facing and blowing air in his
direction; then he has to take a shit.
yea, that is it. the only way out is if
he can manage to gnaw off his own head !
so the work begins.
Let it come.
I'm hoarding chocolate.
I'm gonna end up with all the bitchez.
Ain't nothing a woman won't do for chocolate.
Brilliant!! Well done my good sir! I have been stupidly stocking up on canned goods. Fortunately, this means there is plenty of room in the fridge for lots and lots of chocolate.
Yes. Gonna be bad. Gone too far to back out. No good way out.
BUT - the sooner the pain is begun, the sooner the reset to better happens. IF the people and the "leaders" do the right things (like glass-steagall in the '30s, and the elimination of the FED and fractional banking systems - BOTH proven epic fails - ), then the USA could recover in ten or 15 years. Lottas pain, but sunshine & REAL growth and REAL prosperity at the end.
Look at Weimar - and after the Great Depression in the '20-s, '30's and early '40's. Not the bad stuff - the end game after the heros (the citizens) have gone through the evil troll's cave and eliminated their power.
Dreaming? Maybe - but only God lasts forever. The rest is just a passing mode.
Will I live to see the recovery? Probably not - but my kids might, and if they have any, their kids probably will. The USSR only lasted about 75 years, and the Fabians began their nastiness a bit over 100 years ago and are about to take enough power to succeed to epic fail. As is so often said, "The main problem with socialism is that eventually it runs out of other people's money to spend." (See "USSA") Had the US not been bailing the USSR out over their years, it would not have lasted as long as it did.
Only one question remains - who will bail the USSA out?
All is going according to plan. Bwahaha... ahaha... ahahahahaha!
Great article.
Is it not the case that terminology used to describe economic events since 2007-8 has been chosen by the ruling elites? To obfuscate, confuse and mislead people.
One example is "Quantitative Easing" used by all political elites/central banks, and of course by the empty talking heads in MSM Daily Slime. If the correct term was used: "printing money", the elites in govt and central banks risk being accused of resorting to banana republic policies.
So it is regarding whether Europe is already in a 'depression' or not. There is no definitive dictionary definition of what 'depression' is, so MSM are using the term 'great recession', to avoid voters drawing parallels with the 1930s.
And then we have the recent EZ/Troika 'bail-in' of savers/depositors. A far more correct term would be 'expropriation', but this might cause anger among the mug punters.
It goes on... ... ...