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A Storm Of Bad "Incoming Data" Strikes As The World Economy Rolls Over

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

Brutal news is pouring in from pretty much everywhere.

US retail sales are flat and wholesale prices are falling. Big retail chains are missing on earnings and seeing their shares plunge.

Chinese nonperforming loans are soaring while imports, car sales and steel production are way down.

Oil is flirting with multi-year lows as tankers wander the ocean with nowhere to offload their crude. Other commodities like aluminum and copper are back at 2009 levels and still falling.

A general strike has paralyzed Greece and a far-left coalition is taking power in Portugal. Middle Eastern refugees keep pouring into Europe and no one seems to know where to put them. Eurozone growth is sliding back towards zero and the once-bulletproof Scandinavian countries are now the “sick men” of the region.

Argentine inflation is 35%, Brazil’s political/economic crisis is threatening to topple the government, and a giant copper mine just dumped millions of gallons of toxic sludge on some Brazilian villages.

Equities in Asia, Europe and the US are getting whacked as the sheer volume of bad news swamps the hope that European and Chinese QE programs will keep the asset price party going.

The world, in short, is rolling over. Debt monetization on the scale so far attempted has failed to stop the implosion of tens of trillions of dollars of bad paper, growth has stalled and geopolitics has begun to resemble the parking lot of a British soccer match, with scary people doing random, incomprehensibly violent things and no generally recognized authority able to impose control. Elections are now fearful rather than hopeful prospects and anti-status quo parties in France, Britain, Italy and Spain have become serious contenders.

And none of this is a surprise. It’s just what you get when you put monetary printing presses in the hands of governments and/or big banks. That is, soaring debt, increasing corruption and inequality as newly-created currency flows to the already-rich, political instability as the have-nots of the world decide they’ve got nothing to lose, and uncomprehending paralysis among sitting leaders who have only ever known easy money.

It’s time for us all to go back and read Friedrich Hayek’s Road To Serfdom and to pay renewed attention to the relative handful of people who got it right, such as Ludwig von Mises…

There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.

…Hyman Minsky…

Stability leads to instability. The more stable things become and the longer things are stable, the more unstable they will be when the crisis hits.

… and of course Ron Paul:

You cannot print money forever and deceive the markets forever. Eventually, the markets will rule and it’s only a question of when that will happen. Gold is your defense against the policies of the Fed.

 

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Sat, 11/14/2015 - 13:35 | 6792542 Looney
Looney's picture

Now the Fed will add the “storm of bad data” to its constant “weather” excuses. ;-)

Looney

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 13:47 | 6792601 Tyrone Shoelaces
Tyrone Shoelaces's picture

It's that dastardly El Nino!

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 14:11 | 6792683 Griffin
Griffin's picture

I would say that the weather forecast for next year is not very good. In my view its not unlikely that trouble starts for real early next year. 

 

 

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 14:22 | 6792750 Macon Richardson
Macon Richardson's picture

Yes, and early morning volcanoes.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 14:32 | 6792800 PoasterToaster
PoasterToaster's picture

Climate Change and Economy Change must be linked somehow.  This calls for some research grants and maybe a new cebinet level bureaucracy.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 15:15 | 6793007 Being Free
Being Free's picture

They are. Both are driven by egotistical academics relying on failed computer models, a complicit media and a partnering government in an attempt to implement a new social order.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 16:19 | 6793307 RockyRacoon
RockyRacoon's picture

I'm so glad copper prices are coming down.  I can upgrade to a copper foil hat and ditch the aluminum foil.  So much more fashionable you know, and a much better conductor.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 18:10 | 6793742 Griffin
Griffin's picture

The finest hats are the invisible ones printed by the federal reserve. Much lighter, cooler and infinitely strong.

If you ever have to eat your hat you will be glad you didn't buy the copper one.

Sun, 11/15/2015 - 00:50 | 6794799 Whiskey Badger
Whiskey Badger's picture

At these prices surely you can afford a gold or at least silver foil hat.  

FYI The Yellen Stroke was actually the aliens uploading new instructions telling her when to raise rates.  That or she finally egressed their probe.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 19:02 | 6793917 dimwitted economist
dimwitted economist's picture

(sigh..)

OK

One more time:

"IT"S A RECOVERY! GODDAMN IT!!!!!!!

Got it Now?

Any Questions?

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 13:37 | 6792555 VWAndy
VWAndy's picture

So the pillaging part is over now?

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 13:50 | 6792615 longwood
longwood's picture

Yeah - the clusterfuck part begins soon.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 19:47 | 6794039 worbsid
worbsid's picture

How many times do I have to tell you ... it's pillage first and then burn.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 13:42 | 6792574 Demdere
Demdere's picture

Can anybody be surprized? This civilization has not been working well for some time.

https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/11/14/in-reality-everything-is-c...

As a control systems engineer, of course I see it as a control systems problem.  But whatever you see it as, you cannot claim a clean win for policy, either in generating policies or implementing them.  Policies and implementation of policies are clearly at the root of the problems.

Also, nobody wants to deal with the fact that civilization has a high rate of failure.  That means, at least, that rulers don't have the tools they need to manage their nations, or the discipline to use them.

https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/10/02/warning-ideas-are-dangerous/

https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/11/11/dynamics-of-national-colla...

The net is the answer, of course :

https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/11/13/why-not-presidential-debat...

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 14:29 | 6792707 Sudden Debt
Sudden Debt's picture

It's pretty easy actually, all our economic models are based on growth. Any business manager has been trained to steer business that have growth and can make profit. And to get there, every company only needed something unique, a edge.

 

But witht the internet growing, ideas spread faster then ever before and everybody copied everybody's edge and idea's. In the end, nobody really has a edge anymore and everybody sells about the same.

Then the sollution was cutting costs and centralising! That was great! Untill everybodybody started to sell products from the same factories just wih a different look. So that edge evaporated also pretty quickly. That's where we where in 2008/10

And now we keep cutting costs and price cuts and the only option is volume discounts and destroy the rest.

It's a lack of creativity in business because everybody has been put in a box. We actually hate creative people in business unless it's an accountant.

And nobody still knows how to handle a business model where the market gets smaller without cuttig prices and going bankrupt in the end.

Yes there's sollutions but not the kind they want to hear because it equalizes the wealth and doesn't concentrate it to the top. 

The sollution is less working hours, 30 or so wiht the same salary of a 38 hour workweek.

Our technology allows it but that means less profits at first, and remember at first for the top 0,1%.

And what do we do instead?

Increase hours and cut salaries...

What we need is the exact oposite of what we're doing.

And that's also what gives more power to small businesses because their edge will be flexibility and more hours for themselves.

In the end, you can't run a civilization when everybody is unemployed because then all the rich will be killed.

They don't realize it yet and will only do when it's to late. So all we can do is let history run it's course and blend in with the masses when need be.

 

And what is wealth? Wealth is owning as many tokens from the civilization you live in. 

Imagine you had a bankaccount from you ancestors from the hay days of the spanish empire. It would be useless now, maybe you could sell the paper on ebay for collectors but that's it. It doesn't have any value anymore.

That's why in any constitution, the country comes first, the people second and the economy third.

And now we've put the economy above all else.

Doomed I say! Doomed!!

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 14:30 | 6792794 PoasterToaster
PoasterToaster's picture

The term "growth" seems to be ambiguous for many people these days.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 14:57 | 6792912 Sudden Debt
Sudden Debt's picture

those "many" people have been entertained to death and they only care about them and not society. Who these days believes that society comes first and then their own goals?

Not to many. And they'll go down with our civilization that now exists. And it simply can't survive, our entire civilization and economy needs to change.

And that can only happen after it's been totally destroyed. Quick or fast, that depends on the type of wars that go with it.

And it's not about if anybody wants those wars or not, it's the only thing that can lead to a real recovery.

Weird or not, our civilization only works if there are resets by destruction and deaths.

And those "many" need and will to be the canon fodder.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 17:11 | 6793545 herkomilchen
herkomilchen's picture

It's a lack of creativity in business because everybody has been put in a box.

And who put us in the box?  Hint: starts with a "g."

The solution is less working hours, 30 or so with the same salary of a 38 hour workweek.

Thanks central planner in chief.  What more cure-all specific details are part of your vision for optimizng society?

What we need is the exact opposite of what we're doing.

If you mean optimizing for the conditions we find ourselves in, actually that's exactly what we need.  The conditions just need to be changed.  From rigged statist systems to value-delivered free markets.

And what is wealth? Wealth is owning as many tokens from the civilization you live in.

Yes, and if these tokens of productive labor are honestly earned, this is the noblest achievement.  It means on account of your efforts you created so much value for others that they chose to voluntarily trade with you rather than not.  Mutual gain, everyone wins, purely voluntary all around.  Heroic.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 17:24 | 6793588 Sudden Debt
Sudden Debt's picture

1. Yes, and also the HR selection models that only look for the perfect employee. Everybody the same. A most destructive model.

2. If there's work for half of society and the other half sits on it's ass. You devide the work and let everybody work. 

What else can you do? And what if 1/4 of society works and 3/4 sits on his ass?

Imagine you're on a island with 4 guys and you're the one working and the rest sits on his ass and lives from your labor. Surely you wouldn't want to change that because that would be to controlling?

And you might not have noticed but we're living in a centrally controlled system for a very very very long time already.

3. They gave us globalisme under that pretext and all it did was make the richest richer because in a 7 billion people world, there's always somebody working for less then what you ask.

 

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 19:58 | 6794075 herkomilchen
herkomilchen's picture

1.  I agree a destructive model but only because cartelized businesses cater to the government first.  It's franchise is the most important driver of their profits so it becomes the most important "customer."  And the critical success factor for catering to government is compliance and uniformity.  Remove government and the focus shifts to catering to customers.  Diverse customers with diverse needs requiring diverse employees to produce optimal solutions.  Don't confuse the symptoms for the source of the affliction.

2. This is communist.  Step back and take a deep breath.  Jobs are not a fixed quantity thing that magically just appears and then you must clutch at, ration, and reallocate.  There are infinite jobs available because there are infinite consumer demands and infinite profit opportunities to cater to them.  Only government roadblocks stop full employment at all times.

If I'm on an island with 3 guys who won't work then I am with 3 guys who won't eat.  My guess is they'll choose to work rather than starve.  Then they'll choose to trade with me because we can all be more efficient cooperating that way.

3.  Someone doing a job I could only do for more money is a godsend to me.  His productivity is higher.  He contributes more value to the marketplace in which I have to buy goods and service and his contribution of greater value to it makes my purchases cheaper.  But more importantly, I'll take the marketplace signal to go find a different area, specialize further as necessary, until I am the most efficient one who is best in class at my niche.  That is, the most skilled, most value-producing worker possible.  I will have 0 competition and own the space.  Best for me.  Best for the other guy.  Best for the economy and everyone else.  A self-organizing, self-optimizing system with monetary feedback signals left intact to direct people where to go and where not to go to maximize their productivity.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 13:43 | 6792582 Panic Mode
Panic Mode's picture

Yeah but if you don't report it, it's ain't real. 

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 14:02 | 6792650 Sudden Debt
Sudden Debt's picture

Nothing 4 to 5 trilion can't solve! Just put on the children of our childrens childrens tab! They still might be good for it!

And write the tap in arabic because that's the only thing what they'll be able to read...

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 14:11 | 6792682 Kantbelieveit
Kantbelieveit's picture

It is a great achievement that large numbers of combative and delusional people can be tricked into behaving decently and serving their own best interests, but as the hate-filled screeds on ZH attest, the cussedness remains.

When the angry mobs tear down fiat currency, social welfare programs, and central government, they will not like what they see. Then they will rebuild, without any acknowledgement of error. This cycle will repeat forever.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 14:18 | 6792728 Griffin
Griffin's picture

There is no need to tear anything down, just replace it with a better system.

There is always going to have to be a government, just have one that serves its people.

 

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 15:00 | 6792943 Sudden Debt
Sudden Debt's picture

you can't build anything new without destroying the former. History is pretty clear about that one.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 15:48 | 6793120 honestann
honestann's picture

You can't build a new system without destroying the former... IF... you stay in the same place.  That's why outer space is the solution.

Leave predators and willing prey on planets.  Honest, ethical, benevolent producers will do exceedingly well in outer space, living and traveling in large spacecraft, or living and hiding behind or inside any of billions of asteroids.

A small-scale version of this might be possible on earth (living on structures in international waters of the pacific ocean, or under the surface, or under the ocean floor).  But eventually the predators-that-be would enslave them too.  They will not tolerate any liberty they can destroy... PERIOD.

So ultimately, the only way to enjoy liberty is to move to outer space, where the cost to attempt collection of taxes and enforcement of laws enormously exceeds what the predators could steal by doing so.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 16:52 | 6793465 o r c k
o r c k's picture

I'm partial to giant lava-tubes on the Moon and on Mars. They are truly gargantuan and can be hundreds of miles long. I predict the ones on Mars will have lakes and waterfalls and will eventually be home to many human civilizations. The methods for colonizing them and growing food were figured out many years ago. I'd like to be the initial explorer of one of these -- imagine a dark world untouched for 5 billion years. And on Mars, stalactites as tall as the Empire State Bldg. (just combine a mile high ceiling, low gravity, water and 5 billion basically undisturbed years.) Will be all kinds of neat stuff.

Mon, 11/16/2015 - 11:19 | 6797859 honestann
honestann's picture

I totally agree.  BUT... in the long run, why do you imagine human-predators doing business as "corporation" or "government" won't enslave you?

That's the problem in the long run.  Plus, lots of other places in the universe (or just solar system for now) also have great potential.

One possibly workable idea.  Whoever gets well established in some great place first could try to establish an "anti-government" whose only purpose is to prevent anyone from trying to establish convenional government.  That might work, but whoever runs the place would need to remain vigilant and well prepared.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 15:48 | 6793131 longwood
longwood's picture

That's right! Because the TPB will not go along quietly.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 19:12 | 6793948 Pomkiwi
Pomkiwi's picture

The soulless banksters all conspire

To grasp the scheme of things entire

They want to break it all to bits

And build it more to their own desire

 

Apologies to Omar Kayam

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 17:00 | 6793490 herkomilchen
herkomilchen's picture

I'm sure if I keep working on devising a better square, I can get it to be a circle.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 14:29 | 6792785 PoasterToaster
PoasterToaster's picture

It is a great achievement that large numbers of combative and delusional people can be tricked into behaving decently and serving their own best interests

This false belief is at the center of more murder and mayhem by "governments" than any other thing.  If the majority of people could be taught the truth about human behavior, falsehoods like this would not be used to form the backdrop of what allows the gang of theives and murderers behind the "government" to enslave the rest of us.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 14:16 | 6792710 RiverRoad
RiverRoad's picture

We have the central banks and their globalization greed to thank for this mess.  One world?  Hardly.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 14:23 | 6792755 Dr. Spin
Dr. Spin's picture

I am the God of the Copybook Headings,

Bow down before me,,,

Spoctor Din

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 14:39 | 6792839 Niall Of The Ni...
Niall Of The Nine Hostages's picture

Nobody who truly matters has any reason  to be concerned. Not yet.

While the bank-confetti they print still has any value, they'll have the wherewithal to keep fighting the class war.

All they have to do to bring down a government determined to change anything is cut off the credit that keeps standing armies and law enforcement agencies from open mutiny, and let the big men with guns do the rest.

Only debt-free countries that are self-sufficient in energy (like  Russia) have any chance of standing up to them. Nothing short of Russian cavalry will bring the system crashing down in Europe----and good luck getting them over the Atlantic Ocean.

The have-nots are only to be tolerated at all until everything they're needed for can be automated. Then, the first order given to our robotic replacements will be to exterminate us. They'll make far better socialists than we ever did.

The class war is real. The bad guys are winning. And they will give no quarter to the vanquished.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 14:46 | 6792878 Francis Marx
Francis Marx's picture

NowI understand how some people dream of moving to another planet. Where hence...the nightmare starts all over agian.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 15:42 | 6793099 honestann
honestann's picture

The wise dream is to move into outer space... or at most move to (or behind) one of the billions of asteroids.

To live in outer space (in a large spacecraft or habitat) avoids the problem of human predators that invariably happens on planets.

Put simply, the main reason this works is... the cost predators would have to bear to find producers and attempt to collect from them, would greatly exceed what they could collect.  Which renders space the place for producers, and planets the place for predators.

Of course, this all goes out the window if FTL is practical and can be made inexpensive.  That is exceedingly unlikely, and probably impossible.

Sun, 11/15/2015 - 00:34 | 6794776 assistedliving
assistedliving's picture

SS Honestann you go first and report back to us OK?  and give my regards to Capt Kirk while you're out there

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 16:56 | 6793472 herkomilchen
herkomilchen's picture

The key is planetS.  As long as people are always able to opt-out of oppression, competition will reveal whether statism or freedom is more successful.  Nothing speaks like results when a free market in governance is allowed to operate.

When those who live by aggression see what living by non-aggression delivers, it will be no contest.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 21:16 | 6794333 silverer
silverer's picture

Of course it will start over.  The US has already made their claims, article here on ZH.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 15:06 | 6792976 fiftybagger
fiftybagger's picture

Gold, silver and Bitcoin.  This isn't rocket science.

 

Silver For The People

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 15:17 | 6793013 Batman11
Batman11's picture

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Warren Buffett

This has rolled out globally with the Neo-liberal ideology.

The 1% have gone to war against the 99% (aka the global consumer base)

This is what the 1% winning looks like – global recession.

 

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 15:27 | 6793054 Batman11
Batman11's picture

How is the global consumer base?

1) The once wealthy Western consumer has had all their high paying jobs off-shored. As a stop gap solution they were allowed to carry on consuming through debt. They are now maxed out on debt.

2) Japanese consumers have been living in a stagnant economy for decades.

3) Chinese and Eastern consumers were always poorly paid and with nonexistent welfare states are always saving for a rainy day. Western demand slumped in 2008 and the debt fuelled stop gap has now come to an end.

4) The Middle Eastern consumers are now too busy fighting each other to think about consuming anything and are just concerned with saying alive.

5) South American and African consumers are busy struggling with economies that are disintegrating fast.

The 1% have nearly won.

 

Sun, 11/15/2015 - 06:14 | 6795118 dreadnaught
dreadnaught's picture

and the Republicans ran against 'class warfare' in 2003!   ROFL

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 15:27 | 6793051 22winmag
22winmag's picture

Lifeboats are going to be in short supply.

 

Get yours now!

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 15:37 | 6793092 honestann
honestann's picture

Or better yet, get the hell outta dodge (off the ship).  Then you won't need a lifeboat.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 17:33 | 6793603 tarabel
tarabel's picture

 

 

Long Nazi Moon Bases.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 15:50 | 6793147 Last of the Mid...
Last of the Middle Class's picture

Fucking Bush!!!!

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 18:54 | 6793893 gcjohns1971
gcjohns1971's picture

For the US, at least, let this be known as Wilson's curse.

Wilson was the Banks' stooge, who supported him to governorship, and presidency.

In return he supported their quest to consolidate the banking system under a private central bank with ostensibly government authority for the purpose of transfering the innate risk of Fractional Reserve Banking from the banks engaging in it, to the unsuspecting populace at large, using the currency itself as the transmission mechanism of the spreading insolvency.

In Europe you can blame the Rothschilds, Warburgs, and their political stooges.

Sat, 11/14/2015 - 21:26 | 6794359 silverer
silverer's picture

What have we learned here?  Simple.  Paper is just paper.  It sits on a desk.  It doesn't do work, it doesn't pick up a shovel and dig ditches.  It can't be eaten with any benefit to your body.  It only represents something abstract.  Try to build an abstract boat or truck, and have it do real work.  The world is finally coming to understand what has driven this shit show, and realizes how its all been propped up.  Now the guy with the hooked pole is approaching from the side of the stage...

Sun, 11/15/2015 - 08:52 | 6795280 CAPT DRAKE
CAPT DRAKE's picture

Blood money.  Any stock market gains due to QE et al are simply blood money.   The pain coming down the road from all this fraud and malfesense is going to be incredible.  The baby boomers will see their retirement wiped out and everyone else will see a 40% reduction in standard of living.    

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