GEAB N°59 is available! Global systemic crisis: 30,000 billion US dollars in ghost assets will disappear by early 2013 / The crisis enters a phase of

As we come to the end of the second half of 2011, it is evident that 15,000 billion in ghost assets have gone up in smoke since last July, just as was anticipated by LEAP/E2020 (GEAB N°56 ). And, according to our team, this process figures to continue at the same rate throughout the year to come. Indeed we estimate that, with the introduction of a 50% discount on Greek government debt, the global systemic crisis has entered a new phase: that of the generalized discount on Western public debt and its corollary, the fragmentation of the global financial markets. Our team believes that 2012 will bring an average discount of 30% of total Western public debt (1), plus an equivalent amount in loss of assets from the balance sheets of worldwide financial institutions. Specifically, LEAP/E2020 anticipates the loss of 30,000 billion ghost assets by early 2013 (2), with an acceleration in 2012 of the partitioning process of the global financial market (3) into three increasingly disconnected currency areas: Dollar, Euro, and Yuan. These two phenomena feed into each other. They will also be the cause of a sharp decline of 30% on the part of US currency in 2012 (4), as we announced last April (GEAB N°54 ), which will occur amidst a sharp reduction in demand for the US dollar and the worsening of the US governmental debt crisis. The end of 2011 will therefore see, as anticipated, the trigger of the European debt crisis detonating a US bomb.

In this GEAB N°59 we will analyze in detail this new phase of the crisis as well as the deepening US debt crisis. Moreover, we will begin to present, as indicated in previous GEABs, our forecasts about the future of the United States between 2012 and 2016 (5) starting with a fundamental aspect of Euro-US relations (and more generally the global system that has been in place since 1945), namely the strategic and military relations between the US and Europe. We have estimated that by 2017 the last US soldier will have left European continental soil. Finally, LEAP/E2020 will present its recommendations, dealing this month with currency, gold, capital-based pensions, the financial sector, and commodities.

In this public announcement we have chosen to present the various elements that will determine the next escalation of the US debt crisis, while taking stock of the October EU summit and the Cannes G20 summit.

As anticipated by LEAP/E2020 for several months, the G20 summit in Cannes turned out to be a resounding failure, resulting in no significant measures, and demonstrating an incapability of addressing the issues of change in the international financial system, global economic recovery, or reform of global governance. If the Greek question took center stage during the summit, it is partly because the latter was lacking in content to begin with. George Papandreou enabled the G20 leaders to carry on “as if” Greek affairs had interrupted their work (6), when in fact the Greek crisis allowed them to disguise their inability to craft a common agenda.

Meanwhile, the decisions of the EU summit in the week before the Cannes summit have pointed to the official emergence of Euroland (with now two fixed summits each year) (7), the primacy of which will confer de facto decision-making authority within the EU (8). The pressure from this crisis has, in the last few days, helped to build the capacities of Euroland policies, putting it on the path to greater integration (9), a prerequisite to any positive developments towards a post-crisis world (10).


Comparison of national Italian (red), German (blue), and French (gray) budgets and debts, as percentage of GDP (2002-2011) - Source: Spiegel, 10/2011
With a government of national unity finally in place in Greece (11), a modern state must literally be built from the ground up, with a proper land registry and an effective administration enabling the Greeks to become “normal” members of Euroland, not subjects of a feudal system where prominent families and the church share the wealth and power. Thirty years after its unconditional integration into the European Community, Greece must go through a five or ten year transitional phase similar to that of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe before their EU accession: painful, but inevitable.

Italy, meanwhile, has managed to rid itself of a leader altogether typical of the world before the crisis, characterized by his “bling”, his racketeering, his unscrupulous acquisition of money, his unfounded self-satisfaction, his hold on the media, his constant Euro-criticism and junk nationalism (12), not to mention his overflowing libido. The scenes of joy in the streets of Italy show not all is wrong with this global systemic crisis! As we indicated in the previous GEAB, we believe that 2012 will for Euroland be a year of transition on the road to building the world after the crisis, instead of just suffering the woes of the collapsing system.

At the same time the United Kingdom has basically been kicked out of the Euroland meetings (13). EU members outside the Eurozone have backed Euroland in refusing to support the British proposal concerning the right of the 27 to veto Euroland decisions. The United Kingdom’s drift has been boosted by the efforts of British Eurosceptics (generally the foot soldiers of the City) (14) to try to sever as quickly as possible the strongest ties with continental Europe (15). Far from being proof of their policy’s success, it is rather an admission of complete failure (16). After twenty years of continuous efforts, they failed to disrupt the European integration process, which has been revived by the pressures of the crisis. So they are now “dropping hawsers” out of a fear – well founded, by the way (17) – of seeing the UK absorbed into Euroland by the end of this decade (18).

All told, it is a desperate march forward which, as pointed out by Will Hutton in a remarkably lucid article in the Guardian on 30/10/2011, can only lead the UK towards a break with a Scotland seeking to recover not only its independence (19) but also its European anchorage, and towards the socio-economic condition of an off-shore financial market without social protection (20) or an industrial base (21): in sum, a Dis-United Kingdom adrift (22).

And with its US ally in dire straits itself, that drift may drag on for years, to the great misfortune of a British people growing increasingly discontented with the City. Even veterans are beginning to join the Occupy the City movement (23); obviously, on this point, there is a convergence between the views of the British people and those of Euroland!

For consolation, British financiers can say that they hold the largest proportion of Japanese state assets outside of Japan, but when the IMF warns Japan of the systemic risk of maintaining public debt above 200% of GDP (24), is that such a consolation?


Japanese asset allocation (United States, United Kingdom, Euroland, China, Asia), in (1) percentage of countries’ GDP and (2) percentage of total foreign assets - Source: European Central Bank, 06/2011
Speaking of public debt, it is time to turn to the United States. The coming weeks figure to remind the world that it is this country, not Greece, that is at the epicenter of the global systemic crisis. In one week’s time, on November 23, the Congressional “Supercommittee” in charge of reducing the US federal deficit will admit its failure to find 1,500 billion US dollars in savings over ten years. Each side is already crafting arguments that will blame the other side (25). As for Barack Obama, apart from his televised simpering with Nicolas Sarkozy, he now contemplates the situation passively, while noting that Congress has torn into pieces his grand jobs project introduced only 2 months ago (26). And it is not the utterly unrealistic announcement of a new Pacific Customs Union (excluding China) (27) on the eve of an APEC summit where Chinese and Americans are expected to confront one another harshly, which will enhance his stature as head of state, let alone his chances for reelection.

The predictable failure of the “Supercommittee”, which reflects the overall paralysis of the US federal political system, will have an immediate and drastic consequence: a new series of credit ratings deteriorations. The Chinese agency Dagon has opened fire, confirming that it would once again lower the rating upon the failure of the “Supercommittee” (28). S&P will probably lower one more time the US rating, and Moody’s and Fitch will have then no other choice but to get on board, having given the US a reprieve until the end of the year under condition of effective results in terms of public deficit reduction. Incidentally, in order to dilute the flow of negative information in this regard, it is likely that there will be an attempt to reinforce the public debt crisis in Europe (29) by lowering France’s rating in order to weaken the European Financial Stability Fund (30).

All of this makes for an eventful season for the financial and monetary markets, casting severe blows on Western banking systems and, beyond that, on all US T-Bond holders. But beyond the failure of the “Supercommittee” to reduce the federal deficit, the entire US pyramid of debt will be thoroughly examined, in a context of global – and of course US – recession : falling tax revenues, unemployment increases, increases in the number of unemployed no longer receiving benefits (31), further drops in home values, etc.


US (in red) and Greek (in blue) private sector as a percentage of GDP (2000-2010) - Source: SuddenDebt, 03/2011
Let’s keep in mind that the state of US private debt is far worse than in Greece! In this context, we are not far from a panic-inducing situation abount the United States’s capacity to repay its debt other than with a devalued currency. The end of 2011, then, will see many US debt-holders seriously considering this ability and of the precise moment when it might suddenly be called into question by all financial players (32).

What could the United States offer after the failure of its “Supercommittee”? Not much, particularly in an election year! On the one hand it was created because other actions were not working, and on the other the issue is not so much one of amount but of the very ability to undertake a significant and sustained reduction. The failure of the “Supercommittee” will rightly be seen as evidence of this inability of the US in tacking the deficit problem.

In terms of the amounts at stake, a quick calculation by a USreader of GEAB gives some sense of how much the “efforts” undertaken to reduce the budget deficit are ridiculous in relation to the needs : Treating the US federal budget as that of a household, things become abundantly clear. Simply remove 8 zeros for budget that comes to mean something for the average citizen:

Annual household income (income tax): + 21,700
Family expenses (federal budget): + 38,200
New credit card debt (new debt): + 16,500
Past credit card debt (federal debt): + 142,710
Budget cuts already made: - 385
Budget reduction targets of the Supercommittee (for one year): - 1,500

As can easily be seen, the Supercommitte (like Congress last August) cannot even agree to a 10% reduction … of the annual increase in federal debt. This is how it is: unlike in Europe, which, over the months, has introduced new mechanisms and takes steps to reduce expenditures and debts (33), the US continues to run full speed into increasing debt. As a matter of fact, ni the next semester, Washington plans to issue 846 billion US dollars worth of Treasury bonds, 35% more than this time last year (34).


September 2011: Beginning of the loss of confidence by foreign central banks with respect to US Treasury – Trends in foreign central bank transactions concerning US Treasury and agency holdings (2000-2011) (in brown: monthly increases / green line: above, central banks are buying; below, they are selling Treasury bonds) - Source: CaseyResearch, 10/2011
With the failure of the MF Global investment fund, we have seen that Wall Street titans can crumble at once due to errors made regarding public debt trends in Europe. Jon Corzine is no Bernard Madoff. In moral terms, he is perhaps close, but as for the rest, there is no comparison. Madoff was a Wall Street maverick, but Corzine was a member of the aristocracy: former CEO of Goldman Sachs, former governor of New Jersey, main donor to the Obama 2012 presidential campaign, sensed to replace Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary last August (35), and one of the “creators” of Obama back in 2004 (36). This affair goes to the heart of the incestuous relationship between Wall Street Washington, one which is now being denounced by a majority of Americans (37).

In August, it appeared as if he was untouchable, on top of Wall Street; nevertheless he was completely mistaken about the course of events. He believed that the world had not changed, and that private creditors would continue to be paid “cash on the barrelhead”. The result: huge losses, bankruptcy, innumerable customers bilked, and 1,600 employers out on the street (38).

We announced in the previous GEAB that we have entered a phase involving the decimation of Western banks. This phase is truly in swing, and customers of all financial operators (banks, insurance companies, investment funds, pension funds) (39) are now questioning the soundness of these institutions. As is evident from the Corzine affair, they should not assume that these institutions are a priori stronger than others just because they or their leaders are famous or enjoying a strong reputation (40). It is not knowledge of the rules of the financial game of yesterday, which formed those reputations, that now counts; but rather it is the understanding that the rules have changed that has become crucial.

http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-59-is-available-Global-systemic-crisis-30000-billion-US-dollars-in-ghost-assets-will-disappear-by-early-2013_a8148.html

Global systemic crisis – Last warning before the Autumn 2011 shock, when $15 trillion of financial assets go up in smoke

On December 15, 2010, in the GEAB N°50, LEAP/E2020 anticipated the explosion of Western government debt (1) in the second half of 2011. We were then describing a process that would start with the European government debt crisis and then set fire to the heart of the global financial system, namely US federal debt (2). And here we are with this issue at the start of the second half of 2011, with a global economy in complete disarray (3), an increasingly unstable global monetary system (4) and financial centres in desperate straits (5), all this despite the thousands of billions of public money invested to avoid precisely this type of situation. The insolvency of the global financial system, and of the Western financial system in the first place, returns again to the front of the stage after just over a year of political cosmetics aimed at burying this fundamental problem under truckloads of cash.

We estimated in 2009 that the world had about 30 trillion USD in ghost assets. Almost half went up in smoke in the six months between September 2008 and March 2009. For our team, it's now the other half’s turn, the 15 trillion USD of ghost assets remaining, purely and simply vanishing between July 2011 and January 2012. And this time, it will also involve government debt, unlike 2008/2009 where it was mostly private players who were affected. To gauge the extent of the coming shock, it is worth knowing that even US banks are starting to reduce their use of US Treasury Bonds to guarantee their transactions for fear of the increasing risks weighing on US government debt (6).

For the financial world’s players, the Autumn 2011 shock will literally be the ground giving way beneath their feet, since it’s really the foundation of the global financial system, the US Treasury Bond, which will plunge sharply (7).


US Federal debt and forecasts (2000-2016) (in billions USD) - Sources: US Treasury/ Berruyer / GEAB, 06/2011
In this issue, we discuss the two most dangerous aspects of the Autumn 2011 shock, namely:
. the detonating mechanism of European government debt
. the explosion process of the US bomb in terms of government debts

At the same time, in the context of the acceleration of the rebalancing of global power relationships, we introduce the anticipation of a fundamental geopolitical process for the holding of a Euro-BRICS summit by 2014.

Finally, we focus our recommendations on the means of avoiding being part of the 15 trillion USD in ghost assets that will go up in smoke in the coming months, with a special mention for developments in real estate in Europe whose collapse we used to anticipate for 2015 will start in fact as early as 2012.

In the public announcement of this GEAB issue, we introduce a portion of the anticipation on the detonating mechanism of European government debt.


European Central Bank balance sheet holdings (red: asset backed securities / light blue: public sector bonds / green: bank bonds / dark blue: other corporate bonds / beige: other securities) - Sources: Spiegel / BCE, 05/2011

The detonating mechanism of European government debt
The Anglo-Saxon financial operators have played sorcerer's apprentice for the last year and a half and the first headlines in the Financial Times in December 2009 on the Greek crisis quickly became a so-called "Euro crisis". We will not dwell on the vicissitudes of this enormous chicanery with a news item (8) orchestrated from the City of London and Wall Street, as we have already devoted many pages to it in a number of GEAB issues throughout this period. Suffice it to say that eighteen months later the Euro is doing well while the dollar continues its downward spiral against major world currencies; and that all those who bet on the collapse of the Eurozone have lost a lot of money. As we anticipated the crisis favors the emergence of a new sovereign, Euroland, which now allows the Eurozone to be much better prepared than Japan, the United States or the United Kingdom (9) for the Autumn 2011 shock ... even if it ends up, quite reluctantly, playing the role of detonator. The "bombardment" (since we must call things by their proper name) (10), interspersed with breaks of several weeks (11), to which Euroland has been subjected during all this time, in fact had three consecutive major effects, two of them far from the results expected by Wall Street and the City:

1. at first (December 2009 - May 2010), it removed the European currency’s sense of invulnerability formed in 2007/2008, introducing doubts about its durability and more precisely putting the idea that the Euro was the natural alternative to the US dollar (or even its successor) into perspective

2. then (June 2010 - March 2011), it conducted Euroland leaders to start work at "top speed" on all measures to safeguard, protect and strengthen the single currency (measures which should have been taken many years ago). In so doing it has revitalized European integration and reinstated the founding core at the head of the European project, thus marginalizing the United Kingdom in particular (12). At the same time it has boosted increasing support for the European currency from the BRICS, headed by China, which after a moment of hesitation became aware of two fundamental points: first Europeans were acting seriously to face up to the problem and secondly, given the Anglo-Saxon determination, the Euro was obviously an essential tool for any attempt to exit the "dollar world" (13).

3. Finally, (April 2011 - September 2011), it is currently compelling the Eurozone to start reaching for the sacrosanct private investors to make them contribute to solving the Greek problem especially via “voluntary” repayment rescheduling (or any other form of cuts in expected profits) (14).

As one can imagine, if the first blow really was one of the objectives pursued by Wall Street and the City (besides the fact of turning attention away from the United Kingdom and United States’ massive problems), on the other hand the other two had effects totally opposite to the desired outcome: to weaken the Euro and reduce its attractiveness worldwide.

Especially since a fourth series is gearing itself up which will see, by early 2012 (15), the launch of a Eurobond mechanism, enabling the sharing of a part of Euroland countries’ debt issuance (16), and the inevitable growing political pressure (17) to increase the share of the private contribution in this broad process of restructuring (18) the debt of the Eurozone’s peripheral countries (19).


Progression of Greek debt and its structure (in € Billions (red : expiring debt ; green : budget deficit ; violet : EU loans ; brown : IMF loans ; blue : other - Sources : Le Figaro / SG CIB, 05/2011
And with this fourth series one enters the heart of the contagion process that will trigger the US federal debt bomb. Because, first, in creating a global media and financial environment ultra-sensitive to the issues of government indebtedness, Wall Street and the City have revealed the unsustainable size of US, British and Japanese government deficits (20). This has even forced the rating agencies, faithful watchdogs of the two financial centres, to engage in a mad race to downgrade countries’ ratings. It is for this reason that the United States now finds itself under the threat of a downgrade, as we had anticipated, even though it seemed unthinkable to most experts only a few months ago. At the same time, the United Kingdom, France, Japan... also find themselves in the rating agencies’ crosshairs (21).

Remember that these agencies have never forecast anything of importance (neither subprime, nor the global crisis, nor the Greek crisis, nor the Arab Spring, ...). If they downgrade willy nilly today it’s because they have been caught at their own game (22). It’s no longer possible to downgrade A without affecting B’s rating if B is no better off. The "assumptions" on the fact that it’s impossible for any particular state to default on its debt have not withstood three years of crisis: this is where Wall Street and the City have fallen into the trap which threatens all aspiring sorcerers’ apprentices. They have not seen it would be impossible for them to control the hysteria kept up over Greek debt. So today it’s the US Congress, with the bitter debate on the debt ceiling and massive budget cuts, that the consequences of the misleading articles in recent months about Greece and the Eurozone enlarge. Once again, our team can only stress that if history has any sense, it’s certainly a sense of irony.


Industrial production in China (red) and India (green) (2006-2011) - Source: Marketwatch / Factset China / India Stats, 06/2011

http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-56-Special-Summer-2011-is-available-Global-systemic-crisis-Last-warning-before-the-Autumn-2011-shock-when-15_a6679.html

GEAB N°52 is available! Global systemic crisis / World geopolitical breakup – End of 2011: Fall of the “Petro-dollar wall” and a major monetary-oil sh

Gold and silver seemed to be responding to the stress....

With this issue our team is celebrating two important anniversaries in anticipation terms. Exactly five years ago, in February 2006, the GEAB N°2 suddenly encountered worldwide success by announcing the next "Triggering of a major global crisis" characterized especially by "The end of the West as we have known it since 1945”. And exactly two years ago, in February 2009, in the GEAB N°32, LEAP/E2020 anticipated the start of global geopolitical dislocation phase by the end of that same year. In both cases, it is important to note that the undeniable interest aroused by these anticipations at international level, measurable particularly by millions of people reading the related public announcements, has been matched only by mainstream media silence over these same analyses and the fierce opposition (on the internet) of the vast majority of economic, financial or geopolitical experts and specialists.


Official unemployment rates (12/2010) – Source: BMGBullion, 01/2011
However, in early 2011, most of the world has no doubt that we are engaged in a process of historic proportions which is seeing the world after 1945 collapse before our eyes, the US in the lead, while the international community breaks down a little more each day, like the social and economic fabric of most countries in the world (1). But the current evidence didn’t, of course, prevent “decision-makers and experts” (2) to be sure in 2006 that there was no risk of a serious crisis on the horizon and, in 2009, that it was absurd to imagine the slightest risk of breakdown in the existing world order, let alone the social order. Alas, today, the elite’s intellectual capacity to cope with the changes currently taking place doesn’t seem to have improved since the same “decision-makers and experts” never imagined it possible just two months ago that Tunisia and then Egypt would shortly see their regimes overthrown. Blind governments and international institutions (3), outdated experts and media (4) ... the Western elite and their clones in different regions of the world continue to sink in the “holzweg” of history, those forest trails that lead nowhere, or more precisely as Heidegger pointed out, that lead somewhere only if you have the humility to be constantly listening to the forest and its signals (5).

However, whilst the signals become real warning sirens, our elite seem to have decided to do anything and everything to ignore them. Take a very recent example: the comparison of events affecting the Arab world with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Our team has been very interested to note that this image which we have used since 2006 to help understand the ongoing process of the disintegration of US power, has now blithely been taken up by the political leaders (led by Angela Merkel (6)) and experts of all kinds. Yet today, even those who make this comparison abstain from continuing their intellectual journey to the end, until it leads to an understanding of the dynamics of events. They settle for describing, without analyzing.

Yet this "wall" which is collapsing has been built by someone, or something, and for a specific purpose. The "Berlin Wall" was built by the East German government in the broader context of the "Iron Curtain", which the USSR wanted in order to separate the Communist bloc from the West as tightly as possible. And it was mainly to avoid any questioning of the power held by the single party in each communist country to perpetuate Moscow’s control of the East European countries; in return, Moscow guaranteed full support and stipends of all kinds to the leaders of Eastern European countries. The fall of the "Berlin Wall", challenging these monopolies of power and therefore the purposes that they served, thus caused, in a few short months, the successive fall of all the Eastern European communist regimes, ending two years later with the dissolution of the USSR and the end of seventy years absolute power of the Russian Communist Party.


Unemployment rate in the Arab world and Iran - Source: Le Temps, 02/11/2011
So if it's also a "wall" that’s falling before our eyes in the Arab world, in order to hope to anticipate the subsequent events it is essential to be able to answer these questions: who built it? for what purpose? And the answers are not that difficult to find for those who don’t watch the news with ideological blinkers:

. this "wall" was built by each Arab dictator (or regime) of the region to ensure their continued monopoly on the power and wealth of the country, avoiding any calling into question of their single party or dynastic legitimacy (for the kingdoms). In this sense, there is very little difference between the cliques in power in the Arab countries and those which led the communist countries.

. this "wall" was part of the broader system set up by Washington to preserve their preferential access (in US Dollars) to the region's oil resources and protect Israel’s interests. The forced integration of the military and security apparatus of these countries (except Syria and Libya) with the US defence system ensures (ensured) unwavering US support and allows (allowed) the Arab leaders involved to receive all kinds of stipends without being called into question by internal or external forces.

So, in thinking a little more about her comparison with the fall of the Berlin Wall during the Munich Security Conference, the German Chancellor could have turned to her neighbour in the discussion, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and asked her: "Don’t you think that current events in Tunisia and Egypt are the early signs of the fall of all the regimes that depend on Washington for their survival? And that, in particular, they can lead to a rapid collapse of the system supplying oil to the United States set up decades ago? And thus the global system for oil billing and the central role of the Dollar here (7) ? Whilst the Munich Security Conference audience would have suddenly realized that they were finally discussing something serious (8), Angela Merkel could have added: "What about Israel? Don’t you think that this fall of the "wall" will involve the need to reconsider the entire US-Israeli policy in the region very quickly (9) ? And then miraculously, the Munich Security Conference would have regained a foothold in the XXIst century and the Euro-American debate could recharge its batteries in the real world instead of rambling in the transatlantic virtual world and the fight against terrorism.

Sadly, as we all know, this exchange didn’t take place. And the ramblings of our leaders are, therefore, likely to continue with the effect of accentuating the shocks of 2011 and its ruthlessness as GEAB No. 51 anticipated.


Annual relative performance of 40 asset classes (in %, expressed in USD) (in green: profit / in red: loss) - Source: Chris Martenson, 02/04/2011
Yet LEAP/E2020 is convinced that the current events in the Arab world, of which we had correctly anticipated the mechanics, are above all the regional translation of fundamental trends of the global systemic crisis, and in particular global geopolitical dislocation (10). As such, they are evidence of major shocks in the coming quarters. We consider, in particular, that the end of 2011 will be marked by what our team calls the "Fall of the petro-dollar Wall" (11) that will immediately generate a major monetary-oil shock for the United States. It is also one of the main topics of this issue with the broader anticipation of more developments in the Arab world (including an accurate country risk indicator for the region). Also, our team analyzes the current acceleration of the Eurozone emergence process and its implications for the Euro and the situation in Europe. Finally, we give our recommendations regarding all these events.

http://www.leap2020.eu/geab-n-52-is-available-global-systemic-crisis-world-geopolitical-breakup-end-of-2011-fall-of-the-petro-dollar-wall-and_a5927.html

GEAB N°51 is available! Systemic global crisis - 2011: The ruthless year, at the crossroads of three roads of global chaos

This GEAB issue marks the fifth anniversary of the publication of the Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin. In January 2006, on the occasion of the first issue, the LEAP/E2020 team indicated that a period of four to seven years was opening up which would be characterized by the “Fall of the Dollar Wall”, an event similar to the fall of the Berlin Wall which resulted, in the following years, in the collapse of the communist bloc then that of the USSR. Today, in this GEAB issue, which presents our thirty-two anticipations for 2011, we believe that the coming year will be a pivotal year in the roll out of this process between 2010 and 2013. It will be, in any case, a ruthless year because it will mark the entry into the terminal phase of the world before the crisis (1).

Since September 2008, when the evidence of the global and systemic nature of the crisis became clear to all, the United States, and behind it the Western countries, were content with palliative measures that have merely hidden the undermining effects of the crisis on the foundations of the present-day international system. 2011 will, according to our team, mark the crucial moment when, on the one hand, these palliative measures see their anesthetic effect fade away whilst, in contrast, the consequences of systemic dislocation in recent years will dramatically surge to the forefront (2).

In summary, 2011 will be marked by a series of violent shocks that will explode the faulty safety devices put in place since 2008 (3) and will carry off, one by one, the “pillars” on which the “Dollar Wall” has rested for decades. Only the countries, communities, organizations and individuals which, over the last three years, have actually undertaken to learn the lessons from the current crisis to distance themselves as quickly as possible from the pre-crisis patterns, values and behavior will get through this year unscathed; the others will be carried away in the procession of monetary, financial, economic, social and political difficulties that 2011 holds.

Thus, as we believe that 2011 will, globally, be the most chaotic year since 2006, the date of the beginning of our work on the crisis, in this GEAB issue our team has focused on 32 anticipations for 2011, which also include a number of recommendations to deal with future shocks. Thus, this GEAB issue offers a kind of map forecasting financial, monetary, political, economic and social shocks for the next twelve months.

If our team believes that 2011 will be the worst year since 2006, the beginning of our anticipation work on the systemic crisis, it’s because it’s at the crossroads of three paths to global chaos. Absent fundamental treatment of the causes of the crisis, since 2008 the world has only gone back to take a better jump forward.

A bloodless international system
The first path that the crisis can take to cause world chaos is simply a violent and unpredictable shock. The dilapidated state of the international system is now so advanced that its cohesion is at the mercy of any large-scale disaster (4). Just look at the inability of the international community to effectively help Haiti over the past year (5), the United States to rebuild New Orleans for six years, the United Nations to resolve the problems in Darfur, Côte d'Ivoire for a decade, the United States to progress peace in the Middle East, NATO to beat the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Security Council to control the Korean and Iranian issues, the West to stabilize Lebanon, the G20 to end the global crisis be it financial, food, economic, social, monetary, ... to see that over the whole range of climatic and humanitarian disasters, like economic and social crises, the international system is now powerless.

In fact, since the mid-2000s at least, all the major global players, at their head of course the United States and its cortege of Western countries, do no more than give out information, or gesticulate. In reality, all bets are off: The crisis ball rolls and everyone holds their breath so it doesn’t fall on their square. But gradually the increasing risks and issues of the crisis have changed the casino’s roulette wheel into Russian roulette. For LEAP/E2020, the whole world has begun to play Russian roulette (6), or rather its 2011 version, “American Roulette” with five bullets in the barrel.


Monthly progression of the FAO food index (2010) and the price of principal foodstuffs (2009/2010) (base 100: averaged over 2002-2004) - Source: FAO/Crikey, 01/2011
Soaring commodity prices (food, energy (7),...) should remind us of 2008 (8). It was indeed in the six months preceding Lehman Brothers and Wall Street’s collapse that the previous episode of sharp increases in commodity prices was set. And the actual causes are the same as before: a flight from financial and monetary assets in favour of “concrete” investments. Last time the big players fled the mortgage market and everything that depended on it, as well as the U.S. Dollar; today they are fleeing all financial stocks, Treasury bonds (9) and other public debts. Therefore, we have to wait for a time between Spring and Autumn 2011 for the explosion of the quadruple bubble of Treasury bonds, public debt (10), bank balance sheets (11) and real estate (American, Chinese, British, Spanish,... and commercial (12)), all taking place against a backdrop of a heightened currency war (13).

The inflation induced by US, British and Japanese Quantitative Easing and similar stimulus measures of the Europeans and Chinese will be one of the destabilizing factors in 2011 (14). We will come back to this in more detail in this issue. But what is now clear with respect to what is happening in Tunisia (15), is that this global context, especially the rise in food and energy prices, now leads on to radical social and political shocks (16). The other reality that the Tunisian case reveals is the impotence of the French, Italian or American “godfathers” to prevent the collapse of a “friendly regime” (17).

Impotence of the major global geopolitical players
And this impotence of the major global geopolitical players is the other path that the crisis can use to produce world chaos in 2011. In effect, one can place the major G20 powers in two groups whose only point in common is that they are unable to influence events decisively.

On one side we haves a moribund West with, on the one hand, the United States, for whom 2011 will show that its leadership is no more than fiction (see this issue) and which is trying to freeze the entire international system in its configuration of the early 2000s (18), and on the other hand we have Euroland, “sovereign” in the pipeline, which is currently mainly focused on adapting to its new environment (19) and new status as an emerging geopolitical entity (20), and which, therefore, has neither the energy nor the vision necessary to influence world events (21).

And on the other side are the BRIC countries (with China and Russia in particular) who are, at the moment, proving to be incapable of taking control of all or part of the international system and whose only action is therefore limited to quietly undermine what remains of the foundations of the pre-crisis order (22).

Ultimately, impotence is widespread (23) at the international community level, increasing not only the risk of major shocks, but also the significance of the consequences of these shocks. The world of 2008 was taken by surprise by the violent impact of the crisis, but paradoxically the international system was better equipped to respond being organized around an undisputed leader (24). In 2011, this is no longer the case: not only is there no undisputed leader, but the system is bloodless as we have seen above. And the situation is aggravated further by the fact that the societies of many countries in the world are on the verge of socio-economic break-up.


US petrol prices (2009-2011) - Source: GasBuddy, 01/2011

Societies on the edge of socio-economic break-up
This is particularly the case in the United States and Europe where three years of crisis are beginning to weigh very heavily on the socio-economic and therefore political balance. US households, now insolvent in their tens of millions, oscillate between sustained poverty (25) and rage against the system. European citizens, trapped between unemployment and the dismantling of the welfare state (26), are starting to refuse to pay the bills for financial and budget crises and are beginning to look for culprits (banks, the Euro, government political parties…).

But amongst the emerging powers too, the violent transition which constitutes the crisis is leading societies towards situations of break-up: in China, the need to control expanding financial bubbles is hampered by the desire to improve the lot of whole sectors of society such as the need for employment for tens of millions of casual workers; in Russia, the weakness of the social security system fits badly with the enrichment of the elite, just as in Algeria shaken by riots. In Turkey, Brazil and India, everywhere the rapid change these countries are seeing is triggering riots, protests and terrorist attacks. For reasons that are sometimes contradictory, growth for some, penury for others, across the globe our diverse societies tackle 2011 in a context of strong tensions and socio-economic break-up, which have the making of political time bombs.

It’s its position at the crossroads of three paths which thus makes 2011 a ruthless year. And ruthless it will be for the States (and local authorities) which have chosen not to draw hard conclusions from the three years of crisis which have gone before and / or who have contented themselves with cosmetic changes not altering their fundamental imbalances at all. It will also be so for businesses (and States (27)) who believed that the improvement in 2010 was a sign of a return to “normal” of the global economy. And finally it will be so for investors who have not understood that yesterday’s investments (securities, currencies,...) couldn’t be those of tomorrow (in any case for several years). History is usually a “good girl”. She often gives a warning shot before sweeping away the past. This time, it gave the warning shot in 2008. We estimate that in 2011, it will do the sweeping. Only players who have undertaken, even painstakingly, even partially, to adapt to the new conditions generated by the crisis will be able to hang on; for the others, chaos is at the end of the road.

----------
Notes:

(1) Or of the world that we have known since 1945 to repeat our 2006 description.

(2) The recent decision by the US Department of Labor to extend the inclusion of the measure of long-term unemployment in the US employment statistics to five years instead of the maximum of two years until now, is a good indicator of the entry into a new stage of the crisis, a step that has seen the disappearance of the “practices” of the world before. As a matter of fact, the US government cites “the unprecedented rise” of long-term unemployment to justify this decision. Source: The Hill, 12/28/2010

(3) These measures (monetary, financial, economic, budgetary, strategic) are now closely linked. That’s why they will be carried away in a series of successive shocks.

(4) Source: The Independent, 01/13/2011

(5) It’s even worse because it was international aid that brought cholera to the island, causing thousands of deaths.

(6) Moreover Timothy Geithner, US Treasury Secretary, little known for his overactive imagination, has just indicated that “the US government could once again have to do exceptional things”, referring to the bank bailout in 2008. Source: MarketWatch, 01/13/2011

(7) Moreover, India and Iran are in the course of establishing a system of exchange “gold for oil” to try and avoid supply disruptions. Source: Times of India, 01/08/2011

(8) In January 2011 the FAO food price index (at 215) has just exceeded its previous record set in May 2008 (at 214).

(9) Wall Street banks are currently unloading their US Treasury bonds as fast as possible (unseen since 2004). Their official explanation is “the remarkable improvement in the US economy which no longer requires us to seek refuge in Treasury Bonds”. Of course, you are free to believe it, like Bloomberg ’s journalist on 01/10/2011.

(10) Thus Euroland is already taking big steps forward along the path described in the GEAB N°50 with a discount in the case of refinancing the debts of a member state, whilst Japanese and US debt are now about to enter the storm. Sources: Bloomberg, 01/07/2011; Telegraph, 01/05/2011

(11) We believe that, in general, global banks’ balance sheets contain at least 50% ghost assets which in the coming year will require to be discounted by between 20% to 40% due to the return of the global recession combined with austerity, the rise in defaults on household, business, community and state loans, currency wars and a pickup in the fall of real estate prices. The American, European, Chinese, Japanese and others “stress-tests” can still continue to try and reassure markets with “Care Bears” scenarios except that this year it’s “Alien against Predator ” which is on the banks’ agenda. Source: Forbes, 01/12/2011

(12) Each of these real estate markets will fall sharply again in 2011 in the case of those which have already started falling in recent years, or in the case of China, which will begin its sharp deflation amid economic slowdown and monetary tightening.

(13) The Japanese economy is, moreover, one of the first victims of this currency war, with 76% of the CEOs of 110 major Japanese companies surveyed by Kyodo News now reported being pessimistic about Japanese growth in 2011 following the rise in the yen. Source: JapanTimes, 01/04/2011

(14) Here are several instructive examples put together by the excellent John Rubino. Source: DollarCollapse, 01/08/2011

(15) By way of reminder, in the GEAB N°48 we had classified Tunisia in the category of countries “with significant risks” in 2011.

(16) No doubt, moreover, that the Tunisian example is generating a round of reassessment amongst the rating agencies and the “experts in geopolitics”, who, as usual, didn’t see anything coming. The Tunisian case also illustrates the fact that it’s now the satellite countries of the West in general and the US in particular, who are on the way to shocks in 2011 and in the years to come. And it confirms what we regularly repeat: a crisis accelerates all the historical processes. The Ben Ali regime, twenty-three years old, collapsed in a few weeks. When political obsolescence is involved everything changes quickly. Now it's all the pro-Western Arab regimes which are obsolete in the light of events in Tunisia.

(17) No doubt this « Western godfather » paralysis will be carefully analyzed in Rabat, Cairo, Jeddah and Amman, for example.

(18) A configuration that was all the more favorable because it was without a counterweight to their influence.

(19) We will return in more detail in this GEAB issue, but seen from China we are not mistaken. Source: Xinhua, 01/02/2011

(20) Little by little Europeans are discovering that they are dependent on centres of power other than Washington. Beijing, Moscow, Brazilia, New Dehli,… Source: La Tribune, 01/05/2011; Libération, 12/24/2010; El Pais, 01/05/2011

(21) All Japan's energy is focused on its desperate attempt to resist the attraction of China. As for other Western countries, they are not able to significantly influence global trends.

(22) The US Dollar’s place in the global system is a part of these last foundations that the BRIC countries are actively eroding day after day.

(23) As regards deficit, the US case is textbook. Beyond the speeches, everything continues as before the crisis with a deficit swelling exponentially. However, even the IMF is now ringing the alarm. Source: Reuters, 01/08/2011

(24) Moreover, even the Wall Street Journal on 01/12/2011, echoing the Davos Forum, is concerned over the lack of international coordination, which is in itself a major risk to the global economy.

(25) Millions of Americans are discovering food banks for the first time in their lives, whilst in California, as in many other states, the education system is disintegrating fast. In Illinois, studies on the state deficit are now comparing it to the Titanic. 2010 broke the record for real estate foreclosures. Sources: Alternet, 12/27/2010; CNN, 01/08/2011; IGPA-Illinois, 01/2011; LADailyNews, 01/13/2011

(26) Ireland, which is facing, purely and simply, a reconstruction of its economy, is a good example of situations to come. But even Germany, with remarkable current economic results however can’t escape this development as shown by the funding crisis for cultural activities. Whilst in the United Kingdom, millions of retirees are seeing their incomes cut for the third year running. Sources : Irish Times, 12/31/2010; Deutsche Welle, 01/03/2011; Telegraph, 01/13/2011

(27) In this regard, US leaders confirm that they are rushing straight into the wall of public debt, failing to anticipate the problems. Indeed, the recent statement by Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, that the Fed will not help the States (30% fall in 2009 tax revenues according to the Washington Post on 01/05/2011) and the cities collapsing under their debts, just as Congress decides to stop issuing “Build America Bonds” which enabled States to avoid bankruptcy these last few years, shows a Washington blindness only equal to that which Washington demonstrated in 2007/2008 in the face of the mounting consequences of the “subprime” crisis. Sources: Bloomberg, 01/07/2011; WashingtonBlog, 01/13/2011

Dimanche 16 Janvier 2011

http://www.leap2020.eu/geab-n-51-is-available-systemic-global-crisis-2011-the-ruthless-year-at-the-crossroads-of-three-roads-of-global-chaos_a5775.html

GEAB N°50 is available! Global systemic crisis: Second half of 2011 - European context and US catalyst - Explosion of the Western public debt bubble

The second half of 2011 will mark the point in time when all the world’s financial operators will finally understand that the West will not repay in full a significant portion of the loans advanced over the last two decades. For LEAP/E2020 it is, in effect, around October 2011, due to the plunge of a large number of US cities and states into an inextricable financial situation following the end of the federal funding of their deficits, whilst Europe will face a very significant debt refinancing requirement (1), that this explosive situation will be fully revealed. Media escalation of the European crisis regarding sovereign debt of Euroland’s peripheral countries will have created the favourable context for such an explosion, of which the US “Muni” (2) market incidentally has just given a foretaste in November 2010 (as our team anticipated last June in GEAB No. 46 ) with a mini-crash that saw all the year’s gains go up in smoke in a few days. This time this crash (including the failure of the monoline reinsurer Ambac (3)) took place discreetly (4) since the Anglo-Saxon media machine (5) succeeded in focusing world attention on a further episode of the fantasy sitcom "The end of the Euro, or the financial remake of Swine fever" (6). Yet the contemporaneous shocks in the United States and Europe make for a very disturbing set-up comparable, according to our team, to the "Bear Stearn " crash which preceded Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy and the collapse of Wall Street in September 2008 by eight months. But the GEAB readers know very well that major crashes rarely make headlines in the media several months in advance, so false alarms are customary (7)!


Net cash outflows from Mutual Funds investing in « Munis » (2007-11/2010) (in USD billions) - Withdrawals were higher than in October 2008 - Source: New York Times, 11/2010
In this GEAB issue, we therefore anticipate the progression of the terminal crash of Western public debt (in particular US and European debt) as well as ways to protect oneself. Furthermore, we analyze the very important structural consequences of the Wikileaks revelations on the United States’ international influence as well as their interaction with the global consequences of the US Federal Reserve’s QE II programme. This GEAB December issue is, of course, the opportunity to assess the validity of our anticipations for 2010, with a of 78% success rate for the year. We also develop strategic advice for Euroland (8) and the United States. And we publish the GEAB-$ index that will now allow us to synthetically follow the progress of US Dollar against major world currencies every month (9).

In this issue, we have chosen to present an excerpt of the forecast on the explosion of the Western public debt bubble.

Thus, the Western public debt crisis is growing very rapidly under the pressure of four increasingly strong limitations:

. the absence of economic recovery in the United States which strangles all public bodies (including the federal state (10)) accustomed to an easy flow of debt and significant tax revenues in recent decades (11)

. the accelerated structural weakening of the United States in monetary, financial as well as diplomatic (12) affairs which reduces their ability to attract world savings (13)

. the global drying up of sources of cheap finance, which precipitates the crisis of excessive debt in Europe’s peripheral countries (in Euroland like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, ... and the United Kingdom as well (14)) and is starting to touch key countries (USA, Germany, Japan) (15) in a context of very large European debt refinancing in 2011

. the transformation of Euroland into a new "sovereign" that gradually develops new rules for the continent’s public debts.

These four constraints generate varying phenomena and reactions in different regions / countries.

The European context: the price of the path from laxity to austerity will be partly paid for by investors
From the European side, we have thus witnessed the difficult, but ultimately incredibly fast, transformation of the Eurozone into a sort of semi-state entity, Euroland. The delays in the process weren’t only due to the poor quality of the political individuals concerned (16) as the interviews of the "forerunners" such as Helmut Schmidt, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing or Jacques Delors hammered on at length. They themselves never having had to face a historic crisis of this magnitude, a little modesty would have done them good.

These delays are equally due to the fact that current developments in the Eurozone are on a huge political scale (17) and conducted without any democratic political mandate: this situation paralyzes the European leaders who consequently spend their time denying that they are really doing what they do, i.e. namely, building a kind of political entity with its own economic, social and fiscal constituent parts, .... (18) Elected before the crisis erupted, they do not know that their voters (and the economic and financial players at the same time) would be largely satisfied with an explanation about the decisions being planned (19). Because most of major decisions to come are already identifiable, as we analyze in this issue.

Finally, it is a fact that the actions of these same leaders are dissected and manipulated by the main media specializing in economic and financial issues, none of which belong to the Eurozone, and all of which are, on the contrary, entrenched in the $ / £ zone where the strengthening of the euro is considered a disaster. This same media very directly contributes to blur the process underway in Euroland (20) even more.

However, we can see that this adverse effect decreases because between the "Greek crisis" and the "Irish crisis", the resulting Euro exchange rate volatility has weakened. For our team, in spring 2011, it will become an insignificant event. This only leaves, therefore, the issue of the quality of Euroland’s political personnel which will be profoundly changed beginning in 2012 (21) and, more fundamentally, the significant problem of the democratic legitimacy of the tremendous advances in European integration (22). But in a certain fashion, we can say that by 2012/2013, Euroland will have really established mechanisms which will have allowed it to withstand the shock of the crisis, even if it’s necessary to legitimize their existence retrospectively (23).


Comparison of yields on Euroland 10 year government bonds - Source: Thomson Reuters Datastream, 11/16/2010
In this regard, what will help accelerate the bursting of the Western public debt bubble, and what will occur concomitantly for its US catalyst, is the understanding by financial operators of what lies behind the "Eurobligations” (or E-Bonds) (24) debate which has begun to be talked about in recent weeks (25). It is from late 2011 (at the latest) that the merits of this debate will begin to be unveiled within the framework of the preparation for the permanent European Financial Stabilisation Fund (26). Although, what will suddenly appear for the majority of investors who currently speculate on the exorbitant rates of Greek, Irish,... debt is that Euroland solidarity will not extend to them, especially when the case of Spain, Italy or Belgium will start being posed, whatever European leaders say today (27).

In short, according to LEAP/E2020, we should expect a huge operation of sovereign debt transactions (amid a government debt global crisis) which will offer Euroland guaranteed Eurobligations at very low rates in exchange of national securities at high interest rates with a 30% to 50% discount since, in the meantime, the situation of the entire Western public debt market will have deteriorated. Democratically speaking, the newly elected Euroland leaders (28) (after 2012) will be fully authorized to effect such an operation, of which the major banks (including European ones (29)) will be the first victims. It is highly likely that some privileged sovereign creditors like China, Russia, the oil producing countries,... will be offered preferential treatment. They will not complain since the undertaking will result in their sizeable assets in Euros being guaranteed.

Charts at link

GEAB N°49 is available! Warning Global systemic crisis – First quarter 2011: Breach of the critical threshold of global geopolitical dislocation

As the LEAP/E2020 team anticipated in its open letter to the G20 leaders published in the international edition of the Financial Times of 24 March 2009, on the eve of the London Summit, the question of a fundamental reform of the international monetary system is central to any attempt to solve the current crisis. But sadly, as was demonstrated again at the failure of the G20 summit in Seoul, the window of opportunity for achieving such a reform peaceably closed at the end of summer 2009 and will not open again before 2012/2013 (1). The world is indeed in the throes of the global geopolitical dislocation that we had announced as beginning at the end of 2009 and which can be seen, less than a year later, in the proliferation of movements, the economic woes, the fiscal deficits, the monetary disagreements, all setting the scene for major geopolitical shocks. With the G20 summit in Seoul, which signalled to the planet in its entirety the end of US domination of the international agenda and its replacement by a generalised mood of “every man for himself”, a new phase of the crisis has begun, prompting the LEAP/E2020 team to issue a new warning. The world is about to breach a critical threshold in this phase of global geopolitical dislocation. And as with every breach of threshold in a complex system, this will generate, as from the first quarter of 2011, a suite of non-linear phenomena: developments that do not conform to the usual rules and the traditional projections, be they economic, monetary, financial, social or political.

In this GEAB N°49, in addition to the analysis of the six main steps marking the breach of this critical threshold of the global geopolitical, our team presents numerous recommendations to help cope with the consequences of this new phase of the crisis. They address, for example the currency/interest rates/gold and precious metals group; wealth preservation and the replacement of the US dollar by another measure of net worth; the bubbles in asset classes denominated in US dollars; and the stock markets and the most vulnerable corporate categories in this phase of the crisis. The LEAP/E2020 team also presents the “three simple reflexes” to adopt to understand and anticipate better the new world taking shape. Also in this issue, our team describes the double Franco-German electoral shock in store for 2012/2013. And we also present an excerpt from the Manual of Political Anticipation, written by the president of LEAP, Marie-Hélène Caillol, and published by Anticipolis in French, English, German and Spanish.


Trade balances of the G20 countries (forecast for 2010) - Source: Spiegel, 11/2010
In this press release for the GEAB N°49, our team chose to present three of the six steps that characterise the critical threshold that the world is about to breach.

The crisis that we are experiencing is characterised by developments on a planetary scale, taking place at two levels that, while correlated, are different in nature. On the one hand, the crisis is symptomatic of the profound changes to our world’s economic, financial and geopolitical reality. It accelerates and amplifies the underlying trends that have been at work for several decades, trends that we have described regularly in the GEAB since its launch at the beginning of 2006. On the other hand it reflects the steadily increasing collective awareness of those changes. This growing awareness is in itself a phenomenon of collective psychology on a global level and it influences the way the crisis develops and triggers sharp bursts of speed in its evolution. Several times in recent years, we have anticipated “inflexion points” in the crisis, corresponding to “sudden leaps” in this collective awareness of the changes under way. And we consider that all the pre-requisites for “rupture” crystallised around the G20 summit in Seoul, enabling a crucial advance in collective awareness of the global geopolitical dislocation. It is that phenomenon that led LEAP/E2020 to identify the breach of a critical threshold and to issue a warning about the consequences of that breach as from the first quarter of 2011.

Around the date of the G20 summit in Seoul, LEAP/E2020 identified a build-up of events likely to lead to “rupture”. Let us examine the main events concerned (2) and their chaotic consequences.

Concluding the quantitative easing: the Fed placed under “house arrest”

The Federal Reserve’s decision to launch “QE2” (by purchasing USD 600 billion of US Treasuries from now to 2011), triggered an outcry, for the first time since 1945, amongst almost all the other global powers: Japan, Brazil, China (3), India, Germany, the ASEAN countries (4), …(5) It is not the Fed’s decision that marks a rupture: it is the fact that for the first time, America’s central bank had its ears boxed by the rest of the world (6), and in a very public and determined manner (7). This is certainly not the cosy atmosphere of Jackson Hole and the central bankers’ meetings. It seems that Ben Bernanke’s threats to his colleagues, conveyed to our readers in GEAB No. 47, did not have the effect that the Fed’s chairman had hoped. The rest of the world made it clear in November 2010 that it had no intention of letting the US central bank continue printing US dollars at will in an attempt to solve America’s problems at the expense of every other country on the globe (8). The dollar is now getting back to being what every national currency is supposed to be: the currency and thus the problem of the country that prints it. In fact, in these last weeks of 2010, we have witnessed the end of an era where the dollar was the currency of the US and the problem of the rest of the world, as John Connally put it so neatly in 1971, when the US unilaterally terminated the convertibility of the dollar into gold. Why? Simply because from now on the Fed must take into account the opinion of the outside world (9). It is not yet under guardianship, but it is under “house arrest” (10). According to LEAP/E2020, we can already anticipate that there will be no QE3 (11) regardless of the US leaders’ opinions on the subject (12); or it will take place at the end of 2011 to the tune of major geopolitical conflict and the collapse of the US dollar (13).


U.S. Federal Reserve’s Assets (2008-2010) – Sources: Federal Reserve of Cleveland / New York Times, 10/2010
European austerity: spread of social resistance movements; mounting populism; risk of fostering radicalism in rising generations; higher taxes

From Paris to Berlin (14), Lisbon to Dublin, Vilnius to Bucharest, London to Rome,… the protest marches and strikes are spreading. The social dimension of the global geopolitical dislocation is clearly visible in the Europe of end-2010. While these events have not yet managed to disrupt the austerity programmes planned by the European governments, they point to a significant collective development: public opinions are emerging from their torpor at the beginning of the crisis, suddenly aware of its duration and cost (social and financial) (15). So the next elections should prove costly for all the current political teams who have forgotten that without fair treatment, austerity will never win popular support (16). In the meantime, the teams in office are still applying the recipes of the pre-crisis period (i.e. neo-liberal solutions based on tax cuts for the richest households and an assortment of higher indirect taxes). But the rise in social disputes (inevitable according to LEAP/E2020) and the policy changes that will emerge in the next national elections, country by country, will lead to a questioning of those solutions; and a dramatic strengthening of the populist and extremist parties (17): Europe is going to get politically “tougher”. In parallel, in view of what looks increasingly like an unconscious desire on the part of the baby-boomers to have younger citizens shoulder their costs, we can expect to see an increase in violent reactions from the rising generations (18). According to our team, they will probably become more radical if they feel that the situation is hopeless, unless a compromise can be reached. But without an improvement in tax receipts, the only compromise credible in their eyes would be cuts in existing pensions, rather than higher education costs. Today is always a compromise between yesterday and tomorrow, particularly when it comes to taxes. And the most likely fiscal consequences of these developments are higher taxes on high earnings and capital gains, a new bank tax and a new, community-wide drive to protect the borders (19). The EU’s trade partners should take rapid note (20).


Selected governments’ borrowing needs (2010-2011) - Sources: FMI / Wall Street Journal, 10/2010
Japan: the latest efforts to resist China’s power

For several weeks now Tokyo and Beijing have been locked in a diplomatic dispute of rare intensity. Under various pretexts (a Chinese trawler about to enter Japanese territorial waters (21), massive Chinese purchases of Japanese assets, causing the yen to appreciate) the two powers exchanged harsh words, suspended their high-level talks and appealed to international public opinion. To the countries in the region, the international visibility of this Sino-Japanese spat is especially revealing because of a glaring absence –that of the US. While these quarrels clearly illustrate Beijing’s growing determination to be recognised as the dominant power in East and South-East Asia and Japan’s bid to oppose that regional Chinese hegemony, there is no denying that the power supposed to dominate in this region of the world since 1945, namely the US, is strangely absent from table. We can therefore assume that what we are witnessing is a real-life test on China’s part to measure its new influence on Japan; and on Japan’s part to evaluate how much scope for action the US still has in Asia, faced with China. The events of recent weeks have shown that, hampered by political paralysis and its economic and financial dependence regarding China, Washington prefers not to get involved. No doubt throughout Asia this spectacle serves to accelerate the awareness that a new milestone has been passed in terms of regional order (22); and that in Japan, mired in an endless recession (23) the economic interests linked to the Chinese market have not been strengthened by the experience.


Global changes under way – massive growth in world port traffic, benefiting Asia (1994-2009) - Sources : Transport Trackers / Clusterstock, 10/2010
In conclusion, this accumulation of events, centred round a G20 summit that was patently incapable of resolving the sources of economic, financial and monetary tension between its principal members, contributed to a decisive advance in the world’s collective awareness of the process of global geographic dislocation under way. And in its turn, this increased awareness will, as from the beginning of 2011, accelerate and amplify the changes affecting the international system and our various societies, generating non-linear, chaotic phenomena such as those described in this issue of GEAB and previous issues. As we emphasised in September 2010, we focus on the fact that chief among those phenomena will be the entry of the US into an austerity phase, beginning in spring 2011. But we also bear in mind that one of the surprises of the next eighteen months could simply be the announcement that the Chinese economy had overtaken the US economy as from 2012 as the Wall Street Journal of 10/11/2010 indicates in its report of the Conference Board’s analysis.

http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-49-is-available-Warning-Global-systemic-crisis-First-quarter-2011-Breach-of-the-critical-threshold-of-global_a5458.html

- Public announcement GEAB N°49 (November 16, 2010) -

GEAB N°48 is available! Global systemic crisis - LEAP/E2020’s analysis of 39 countries’ risks 2010-2014: A collective but contrasting dive into the ph

No wonder Gold and everything else is going up.

- Public announcement GEAB N°48 (October 16, 2010) -

http://www.leap2020.eu/geab-n-48-is-available-global-systemic-crisis-leap-e2020-s-analysis-of-39-countries-risks-2010-2014-a-collective-but_a5295.html

In this issue, our team introduces the annual "country risk" update in the light of the crisis. Based on an analysis incorporating eleven criteria this year, this decision-making tool has already demonstrated its relevance in faithfully anticipating developments over these past twelve months. The identification, at the beginning of 2009, of a new phase of the crisis (the phase of global geopolitical dislocation) forced us to take new parameters into account (nine indicators were selected in 2009) to effectively incorporate trends that are reshaping the global system (1). As 2010 draws to a close, LEAP/E2020 now estimates that the world’s various countries are heading for a collective dive at the core of this phase of socio-economic and strategic geopolitical dislocation (2). Thus our studies enabled us to continue presenting the LEAP/E2020 anticipation of "country risk" for the 2010-2014 period (3), by adapting the categories to the crisis’ development, via four groups of countries (4) characterized by the contrasting impacts of this dive in the geopolitical dislocation phase of the global systemic crisis (5).

On the other hand, in this GEAB issue, we give our anticipations for the progress of Euro-Russian relations between now and 2014. In our recommendations, we pay particular attention to helping our readers deal with a currency market in global conflict, a fallout anticipated over 18 months ago by our team, as a result of geopolitical dislocation. Moreover, on the occasion of the publication of his book "The Global Crisis: The Path to the World After - France, Europe and the World in the 2010-2020 decade ", Franck Biancheri, Director of LEAP/E2020, and Anticipolis editions, have given us permission to publish his analysis of the process of the ongoing global geopolitical dislocation.


Documented instances of social unrest 2009-2010 - Source: IILS, 09/2010
The G20’s (or IMF’s) now patent failure to secure effective international cooperation to try and remedy the structural weaknesses of the current international monetary system perfectly illustrates LEAP/E2020’s anticipation which in March 2009, before the London G20 meeting, explained that the summit was the only window of opportunity to fundamentally rethink the global monetary system at the heart of the current crisis. In failing to seize this opportunity, we reported that the world would begin to enter the global geopolitical dislocation phase from late 2009. At that time, by way of an introduction to this new phase of the crisis, the world has seen the mid-flight explosion, during the Copenhagen summit, of the whole international process on global warming. Since then, every month brings a stream of public finance crises in one state or another, drastic austerity measures causing increase in social unrest (6), international meetings leading to reports of disagreement, the proliferation of threats between States over trade imbalances, etc., all against a background of a downward spiral into hell of the global system’s central power, namely the United States (7).


Change in labour force participation between the first quarters of 2009 and 2010 (Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, France, South Korea, Argentina, Italy, Canada, United Kingdom, Japan and the United States) - Source: IILS, 09/2010
For several months now we have been witnessing the onset of a massive currency world war just like LEAP/E2020 anticipated nearly two years ago and reiterated in its time-frame of the crisis (8). Several weeks hence, the inevitable failure (9) of the FMI/G20 duo to resolve these currency-trade (10) tensions will provide both new evidence while marking a new tipping point of global geopolitical dislocation: every man for himself becoming the rule (11).

Two weeks from now, with the announcement of the actual details of a comprehensive plan to reduce spending, the United Kingdom will eventually have to face an unprecedented (12) socio-economic crisis that it has desperately tried to hide for months (13), and it will have to do it alone (since the United States are unable to help it, and it has put itself outside the European financial rescue system).

And in three weeks, the United States will concurrently expose an unprecedented political paralysis following the mid-term election (14), whilst the US Federal Reserve will launch a new attempt to rescue the US economy by monetizing a stimulus plan that the federal government is no longer able to launch (15). This attempt - whose size will be less than financial markets expect (because the Fed is now forced, in this case by the holders of US Dollar denominated assets: China, Japan, Europe, oil-producing countries (16)...) but more than enough to lead to a further fall in the dollar and plunge the world monetary system into an even worse conflict - will fail anyway because US society has, de facto, entered a phase of austerity that US leaders, in 2011, will have to recognize must also constrain the country’s fiscal and monetary policy (17).

From the world leaders’ side (18), the next four years’ global sequence can be summarized quite simply: last US attempts to "return to the world before the crisis" (stimulating consumption, maintaining deficits, debt monetization) that will all fail (19), last Western attempts to deal with the crisis using "Washington consensus" methods (limiting deficits by reducing social spending, no tax increases on high incomes, privatization of public services, ...) which will generate growing socio-political chaos, acceleration of the BRIC countries’ exit from the majority of Western financial and monetary markets (especially the two financial pillars of Wall Street and London) which will increase monetary instability, rising intensity of trade wars (coextensive with currency wars (20)), the coming to power from 2012 of groups of leaders who have decided to try new solutions (21) to exit the social, economic and political consequences of the crisis, taking note of the fact that the “Washington consensus” is dead ... because there is no consensus anymore and because Washington is a moribund world power.

As for the rest, the keeping the US debt’s Triple-A rating belongs to the same virtual world as the recent declaration by US economic authorities (22) of the end of recession: the growing disconnect between the words of a collapsing system’s key players and the reality perceived by the majority of citizens and socio-economic players is an infallible indication of systemic decline (23). But the financial markets are not mistaken because with the soaring cost of insuring US debt hot on the heels of Ireland and Portugal with a 28% third quarter increase in cost, the United States has become the third country for which the debt markets fear some very unpleasant surprises (24).


Comparative progression of the United States’ deficit (in trillions USD) and the amount of known global reserves held in U.S. Dollars (1999-2009) - Sources: Reuters/IMF/White House OMB, 10/2010
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Notes:

(1) From the beginning of 2006, in the GEAB No. 5, LEAP/E2020 indicated that the global systemic crisis would evolve in 4 major phases. "A global systemic crisis develops in a complex process that can be cut into four phases which may overlap:
. a first "trigger" phase that suddenly sees a whole series of factors, hitherto disconnected, start to converge and interact, and which mainly remain noticeable to alert watchers and the main players
. a second phase called "acceleration" which is characterized by the sudden realization by the vast majority of players and observers that the crisis is here because it starts affecting a rapidly growing number of the system’s elements
. a third "impact" phase which is formed by the radical transformation of the system itself (implosion and/or explosion) under the effect of accumulated factors and which simultaneously affects the entire system
. and finally, a fourth phase called "decanting" that sees the release of the new system’s characteristics resulting from the crisis. Source GEAB No. 5, 15/05/2006
. early 2009, in the GEAB No. 32, LEAP/E2020 identified a fifth phase of the crisis, called global geopolitical dislocation, which begins at the end of 2009, following the G20 failure to launch a credible process of establishing a new international system, particularly in the monetary field. This new phase has been, of course, integrated into the time-frame presented last year in GEAB No. 38.

(2) The ability of states to cope with social unrest that will multiply in the coming quarters and years is closely linked to their ability to contain the most traumatic social effects of the crisis; therefore, our team has introduced a tenth indicator correlated to the tax burden of the past twenty years, whilst an eleventh indicator has been added to assess the resilience to a global monetary war.

(3) Our team has analyzed indicators for 39 countries in addition to Euroland.

(4) These country- risk analyses may be particularly useful for those planning an investment in a given country, intending to settle there or wishing to make an investment in assets linked to that country.

(5) We chose to keep 2014 as an overview because we believe that the changes in political leadership occurring in many important countries (China, USA, Russia, France, ...) in 2012, and which are the principal potential positive factor looking at the next four years, will have no appreciable impact on these country-risks before 2014, the time that new policies are starting to yield results.

(6) France gives a striking example with the growing unpopularity of an executive which fails to prevent social unrest against its reforms and which risks turning into a general strike (France 24, 14/10/2010). Meanwhile, throughout Europe, there is a marked increase of extremist political forces. Source: Le Point, 20/09/2010

(7) All the lights are turning red. The road transport volume has started to decline again (Los Angeles Times, 13/10/2010). Foreclosures continued to grow last month, whilst the whole legal system on which they rest has now broken down (for the legal reasons mentioned in the GEAB a year ago) upsetting a real estate market on Fed and Federal Government life support even more (CNBC, 14/10/2010; USAToday, 14/10/2010; USAToday, 11/10/2010). Cities are sinking into vey deep deficits (such as their employee retirement funds estimated at over 500 billion USD, CNBC/FT, 12/10/2010) and are obliged to turn to the states to try and extricate themselves (CNBC/NYT, 05/10/2010), while the latter can no longer balance their budgets and are obliged to pay interest rates higher than developing countries (thus, Illinois must now pay more than Mexico to borrow, Bloomberg, 05/10/2010).

(8) See the GEAB N°43 particularly.

(9) History doesn’t repeat itself. If we pushed so hard (including at the cost of a full page advertisement in the global edition of the Financial Times) for world leaders to seize the opportunity at the G20 in Spring 2009, it was because we were aware that such a set-up would not happen again. Now the US is too weak to continue to steer the global game, no other player is able to take affairs in hand ... and therefore, the global financial system looks more and more like the "drunken boat; in Rimbaud's poem describing the drift towards unexplored beaches, a perfect description of the world’s course today.

(10) As for the negotiations on climate change, a "West" already clearly divided (here between the Dollar, Pound, Yen and Euro), tries to make the emerging countries (the Yuan in particular) pay the cost of adapting a system they invented and which no longer works. And it's not by ending the game as shown by US efforts to prevent any new Chinese rating agency from operating in the United States that will dissipate this feeling in the BRIC countries. One remembers the performance in Copenhagen. It will pale in comparison to what awaits us at the G20 meeting in Seoul. Besides, the soaring gold price is a very reliable indicator: even the European central banks have stopped their sales. Sources: New York Times, 21/09/2010; Vigile, 29/09/2010; PrisonPlanet/FT, 27/09/2010, Bloomberg, 10/10/2010; ChinaDaily, 27/09/2010

(11) The Telegraph summarized it admirably on 11/10/2010 in "Jobless America threatens to sweep us all away." Sign of the times, Bloomberg on 08/09/2010 announces the opening of a Ruble-Yuan currency exchange in Shanghai to finance Sino-Russian trade.

(12) There is a growing fear in the United Kingdom over the country’s social and political situation in the context of "super-austerity" planned by the government due to financial and budget crisis: the loss of nearly a million jobs, social crisis, unrest.... Sources: Independent, 02/10/2010; Telegraph, 13/10/2010; Guardian, 11/09/2010; MarketWatch, 21/09/2010.

(13) This was, moreover, the main reason for the “Greek crisis becoming the Euro crisis” in Spring 2010, in particular fed daily by articles in the Financial Times to divert attention from London and the Pound Sterling. See GEAB in the first half of 2010.

(14) Recent statements by Steve Schwarzman, head of the financial giant Blackstone, comparing Barack Obama's willingness to tax financial companies more heavily to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, illustrates the explosive atmosphere that rules at the core of the US elite. Source: NewYorkPost, 14/10/2010

(15) Because of the magnitude of existing deficits and political deadlock in Washington.

(16) In this regard, our team gives a timely reminder that there is no mystery about the simultaneous rise of different asset classes, like stocks or gold for example: operators are leaving the stock exchanges (as we showed in the last GEAB issue) and selling their financial and monetary assets for gold (or other less dangerous assets) and the Fed (and its partners) are injecting liquidity into the financial markets to prevent a widespread collapse. The only problem, when the music stops: it will be a tragedy for the stock exchanges. Source: CNBC, 08/10/2010

(17) The situation is so bad that a reading of the New York Times of 13/10/2010 started to look like a cut and paste of the GEAB a year or two ago ... that’s saying something! The article by Michael Powell and Motoko Rich, which describes the "recovery" as merely a continuation of this recession shows the plight of the middle classes across the country in a harsh light, while the very same day Paul Reyes unveils a remarkable collection of photographs showing the ravages of the "Very Great US Depression" as LEAP/E2020 has called it since late 2006.

(18) Franck Biancheri offers a detailed presentation, with the two likely main scenarios for 2010-2020, in his book "The Global Crisis: The Path to the World after;

(19) Source: SeekingAlpha, 24/09/2010

(20) Singapore’s recent announcement that from now on its currency’s trading band against the U.S. dollar will be wider, is the latest example (each day brings a new one) of increasingly defensive positions taken by individual states. Each one tries to increase its room for maneuver to cope with the unexpected. Incidentally, it is interesting to note that Singapore suffered a 19% third quarter fall in GDP, evidence that the mood in Asia is becoming gloomy. Source: YahooFinances, 14/10/2010; MarketWatch, 13/10/2010

(21) For China, one solution will most probably be to inject the country's huge US Dollar reserves into the economy as already suggested by the new generation of Chinese bankers. This will not help the US Dollar. Source: Dallasnews, 19/09/2010

(22) The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER is in charge of "holding a Mass" on this subject.

(23) As MSNBC aptly described on 06/10/2010, it’s once a month at midnight that America’s great depression is revealed in the supermarkets, when tens of millions of food voucher recipients go and do their shopping. According to the study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research published on 16/09/2010, in effect now one in three Americans can no longer make ends meet (one hundred million people ).

(24) Source: CNNMoney, 12/10/2010

Samedi 16 Octobre 2010

Global systemic crisis – From « Eurozone coup d’Etat » to the tragic solitude of the United Kingdom, global geopolitical dislocation quickens

Just as anticipated by LEAP/E2020 in issues N°40 (December 2009) and N°42 (February 2010), spring 2010 really marks a tipping point of the global systemic crisis, characterized by a sudden expansion due to the intolerable size of public deficits (see issue N° 39, November 2009) and the inexistence of the recovery, so often announced (see issue N°37, September 2009). Besides, the dramatic social and political consequences of this development clearly reflect the beginning of the process of global geopolitical dislocation as anticipated in issue N°32 (February 2009). Finally, the Eurozone leaders’ recent decisions confirm LEAP/E2020’s anticipations, contrary to the dominant chatter of these last few months, of the fact that not only will the Euro not « explode » because of the Greek problem but, on the contrary, a strengthened Eurozone will emerge from this stage of the crisis (1). One could even consider that, since the Eurozone decision, a kind of « Eurozone coup d’Etat » supported by Sweden and Poland, to create a huge apparatus to protect the interests of the 26 EU member states (2), the geopolitical deal in Europe has changed radically. Because it runs contrary to the prejudices which fashion their vision of the world, several months will be needed by the majority of the media and players to accept that, behind the appearance of a purely European budgetary-financial decision, lies a geopolitical split with worldwide impact.


Current increases in national debt for the USA, United Kingdom, Euroland and Japan (in green: % of debt to GDP / in red: forecast debt increase for 2009 and 2010 / in yellow: comparative figures for Germany) - Source: European Commission, 2010
Eurozone coup d’Etat in Brussels: The EU founding states regain control

In this issue N°45, we analyse in detail the numerous consequences for Europeans and for the world from what could be called the Eurozone « coup d’Etat » within the EU. In the face of the worsening crisis, the sixteen have indeed taken control of the EU reins of power, creating new tools and instruments which leave no other choice for the other members but to follow or find themselves isolated. Ten out of the eleven other member states have decided to follow, such as the two most important of them, Sweden and Poland, who have chosen to actively participate in the apparatus put into place by the Eurozone (the other eight are currently either in the course of negotiating their Eurozone entry, like Estonia from 2011 (3), or receiving direct help from the Eurozone, like Lithuania, Hungary, Romania, for example…). It is a (r)evolution that our team has clearly anticipated for over three years and we had even stated recently that events would rapidly unfold in the Eurozone once the German regional elections and the British general election had taken place. However, we would never have thought that it would happen in just a few hours, neither with such boldness as to the amount (750 billion Euros, or one trillion USD) and the character (EU control taken by the Eurozone (4) and a leap ahead in terms of economic and financial integration).

The fact remains that without knowing it, and without having asked their opinion, 440 million Europeans have just joined a new country, Euroland, of which some already share the currency, the Euro, and of which all now share the indebtedness and the joint means to solve the serious problems posed in the context of the global systemic crisis. The budgetary and financial decisions taken during the Summit of the weekend of the 8th May in terms of a response to the European public debt crisis can be evaluated differently according to one’s analysis of the crisis and its causes. LEAP/E2020 will roll out its own analyses on the subject in this issue N°45 but, without doubt, a radical unraveling of European governance has just taken place: a collective continental governance has just brutally emerged, ironically 65 years after the end of the Second World War, moreover celebrated with a big display in Moscow the same day (5) as the holiday celebrating the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community, the common ancestor of the EU and Euroland. This simultaneity isn’t a coincidence (6) and marks an important step forward in global geopolitical dislocation and the reconstitution of new global balances. Under the pressure of events set off by the crisis, the Eurozone has thus undertaken to grasp its independence with regard to the Anglo-Saxon world still expressed via the financial markets. This 750 billion Euros and this new European governance (of the 26) constitutes, at the one and the same time, the putting in place of the fortifications against the next storms caused by draconian Western indebtedness, and which will affect the United Kingdom and then the United States (cf. issue N°44 causing disturbances of which the « Greek crisis » has only given a small preview.


The EMF will, in the long run, deprive the IMF of 50% of its major contributions: those of the Europeans

Concerning this, LEAP/E2020 reminds readers of a fact that the majority of the media has been oblivious of for many weeks. Contrary to the prevailing discussion, the IMF is first and foremost European money. In effect one out of three IMF Dollars is contributed by Europeans, compared to only one in six by the USA (their share has been cut in half in 50 years) and one of the consequences of the European decisions of these last few days is that it will not be the case for very much longer. Our team is convinced that, within three years at the latest, when it is time to formalize the integration of the intervention fund created on the 8th and 9th May 2010 into the European Monetary Fund, the EU will reduce its contribution to the IMF by a similar proportion. One could guess already that this reduction in the European contribution (UK excluded) will be in the order of 50% at least. That will allow the IMF to become more globally representative by automatically rebalancing the BRIC share and, in the same breath, requiring the USA to abandon its right of veto (7). But that will equally contribute to it becoming heavily marginalized since Asia has already created its own emergency intervention fund. It is an example which illustrates just how many of the European decisions of the beginning of May 2010 are full of wide sweeping geopolitical changes which will scale out in all of the coming years. In fact, it is unlikely that the majority of the decision makers involved in the « Eurozone coup d’Etat » have clearly understood the implications of their decisions. But no-one has ever said that history was largely made by those people who knew what they were doing.


Countries’ and markets’ IMF contributions (1948-2001) - Source: IMF / Danmarks National Bank - 2001
The United Kingdom: isolated in the face of an historic crisis

One of the simultaneous causes and consequences of this development is the complete marginalization of the United Kingdom. Its increasing weakness since the beginning of the crisis, along with that of its US sponsor, has created the possibility of a complete takeover, without concessions, of the march forward of the European project by the continental countries. This loss of influence reinforces, in return, Great Britain’s marginalization because British leaders are trapped in a denial of reality which they have made their people share as well. None of the British political parties, not even at this point the Liberal Democrats, even though showing greater clarity than the other political parties of the country, could consider reconsidering the decades of diatribe accusing Europe for all the ills and dressing-up the Euro for all the losses. Indeed, even if their leaders were aware of the folly of a strategy consisting of isolating Great Britain a little more day-by-day, even when the world crisis has moved up a gear, they will collide with this public Euroscepticism which they have fostered over the course of the past years. The irony of history was, once again, clearly shown during this historic weekend of the 8th/9th May 2010: in refusing to participate in the Eurozone’s joint defensive and protective measures, the British leaders have, de facto, refused to catch the last lifeline within their grasp (8). The European continent will now content itself with watching them try to find the 200 billion Euros which their country needs to balance this year’s budget (9). And if the leaders in London think that City speculators will have any qualms breaking the Pound sterling and selling Gilts, it is because they haven’t understood the basics of global finance (10), nor checked the nationalities of these same players (11). Between Wall Street, which will do anything to attract the world’s capital (one only needs to ask the Swiss market what it thinks of the war that world markets are currently delivering one another), Washington, which is knocking itself out to hover up all the world’s available savings, and a European continent which has, from now on, placed itself under the protection of a common currency and debt, the dice have been cast. At this stage, we are still in the drama, because the major English players have not yet realised that they are caught in a trap; a few weeks from now, we will move on to the British tragedy because, this summer, the whole country will have discovered the historic trap into which the country, on its own, has fallen.

So, at the moment when Euroland emerges in Brussels, the United Kingdom struggles with a hung parliament, compelling it to move on to the first coalition government since 1945 and which will take the country to a further election between now and the end of the year.


The British and their leaders in trouble, who are going to have to « think the unthinkable »

Whatever the supporters of the coalition now running the country may tell, LEAP/E2020 thinks it highly unlikely that this alliance will last more than a few months. The very different structure of the two parties involved (Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are divided on a number of issues), combined with unpopular decisions, is leading this team straight to internal crises for each party and, then, to a government collapse. The Conservatives will play this card because, unlike the Liberal Democrats, they have sufficient funds to « finance » a new electoral campaign between now and the end of the year (12). But the most dangerous underlying stumbling-block is intellectual: to avoid the tragedy which portends, the United Kingdom is going to have to « think the unthinkable », i.e. reconsider its basic beliefs on its insular outlook, its transatlantic « relationship », its relationship with a continent now on the road to complete integration, while, for centuries, it has thought of the continent as a disunion. However the problem set is simple: if the United Kingdom has always thought that its power depended on a divided European continent, then logically, considering current events, it must now admit that it is heading to a state of impotence... and draw the necessary conclusions, i.e. that it too should make a « quantum leap ». If Nick Clegg seems intellectually equipped to make such a leap, neither David Cameron’s Conservatives, nor the British leaders altogether, seem mature enough yet. In such a case, Great Britain, sadly, must take the « tragic » path (13).

In any case, this weekend of the 8th/9th May 2010 in Europe dips a number of its roots directly into the Second World War and its consequences (14). It is, besides, one of the features of the global systemic crisis as foretold by LEAP/E2020 in February 2006 in issue N°2: it brings to « an end the West as one has known it since 1945 ».

Another of these features is the take-off in the gold price (compared to the US Dollar especially), in the face of the growing distrust in all fiat currencies (see issue N°41, January 2010 (15)). Indeed, whilst all the world speak of the Euro/US Dollar exchange rate, the Dollar remains at its historically lowest levels compared to its major trade partners (see chart below), a sign of the US currency’s structural weakness. In the coming months, as GEAB anticipated, the Euro will climb back to its medium-term equilibrium level of above 1.45/€.

In this issue, before giving our recommendations on currencies, the stock exchange and gold, LEAP/E2020 will analyse in greater detail the US pseudo-recovery which internally is basically a vast focused news operation aimed at re-starting household spending (an impossible task now) and externally at avoiding panicking foreign investors (at best, several quarters can be gained). Thus the United States maintains that it will be able to escape brutal austerity treatment, like the other Western countries, whilst, in fact, the recovery is an « unrecovery » as Michael Panzner, with a touch of humour, called his excellent article of 04/27/2010, published in Seeking Alpha.investors (at best, several quarters can be gained). Thus the United States maintains that it will be able to escape brutal austerity treatment, like the other Western countries, whilst, in fact, the recovery is an « unrecovery » as Michael Panzner, with a touch of humour, called his excellent article of 04/27/2010, published in Seeking Alpha.

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