Greece

EU Makes Greece ‘An Offer They Can’t Refuse’: Agree To A Deal By Sunday Or Go Bankrupt

Gangsters - Public DomainIt looks like we aren’t going to have to wait much longer to see if Greece remains part of the eurozone or not.  Instead of softening their demands in the wake of the Greek referendum, European leaders have given the Greek government an ultimatum.  On Tuesday night, EU officials gave Greece a deadline of Thursday to submit a new proposal and a deadline of Sunday for agreeing to a deal.  If a deal is not reached on Sunday, all aid to Greece will be cut off and the nation will be faced with financial oblivion and a forced exit from the common currency.  But Angela Merkel has already made it abundantly clear that any new deal will not include a debt haircut – one of the key things that the Greek government wanted.  If a deal is actually made, it is almost certainly going to look very much like what Greece’s creditors have been offering all along.  Needless to say, this is precisely what the Greek people just voted against, but the pressure on Greek leadership is immense at this point.  In essence, they are being given “an offer they can’t refuse”.  So will the Greek government buckle under this mobster-like intimidation? (Read More...)

Bare Supermarket Shelves In Greece Should Be A Huge Wake Up Call To Millions Of Clueless Americans

Supermarket In Greece - Photo posted by Vasilis Dalianis On TwitterWhat you are watching unfold in Greece right now is eventually going to come to your own neighborhood.  Someday, people living all around you will be storming the supermarkets in a desperate attempt to secure the food and supplies that they neglected to store up when they had the chance.  Of course the Greeks never thought that it would happen to them either.  Their civilization had endured for thousands of years, and they were a part of the most powerful economic alliance on the face of the planet.  Most Greeks never imagined that they would be plunged into a multi-year economic depression that would ultimately lead to “bank holidays”, long lines at ATM machines, and people diving into dumpsters in a frantic search for something to sell.  And this is just the beginning of the chaos in Greece – things are going to get much, much worse for them.  Hopefully, this will serve as a wake up call for millions upon millions of clueless Americans out there, because we are on the exact same path that Greece has gone down.  The sad truth is that no amount of “American exceptionalism” is going to prevent us from suffering the consequences of decades of very foolish decisions.  We are steamrolling toward our own version of economic collapse, and when that time arrives you don’t want to be caught totally unprepared for it. (Read More...)

Barack Obama Promises That Events In Greece And Puerto Rico Will Not Cause A Global Financial Crisis

Barack Obama Giving Speech - Photo by Gage SkidmoreBarack Obama says that we shouldn’t be alarmed by what is happening over in Greece.  On Tuesday, he told reporters that this “is an issue primarily of concern to Europe” and that “I think the markets have properly factored in the risks involved“.  And apparently Obama is not too concerned about the debt crisis in Puerto Rico either.  In fact, the Obama administration has already completely ruled out any sort of federal bailout for the island.  Barack Obama is assuring us that everything is going to be just fine and that we are not headed for another global financial crisis.  So is he correct?   (Read More...)

Unprepared: What Do You Think Would Happen If A Greek-Style Crisis Hit America?

Despair And Depression - Public DomainIn this article, I am going to share with you some statistics that prove that most Americans are completely and totally unprepared for a Greek-style economic crisis.  According to one recent survey, an all-time high 72 percent of all Americans are concerned about an economic downturn, and yet the amount of actual preparation that is taking place for the next economic downturn is very low.  As 2008 has faded into our memories, most Americans have been lulled into a false sense of security.  Most people seem to be far more concerned about the latest exploits and scandals of their favorite celebrities than they are about the very real problems that this nation is steamrolling toward.  Hopefully what is going on in Greece right now will serve as a wake up call, because the truth is that similar things could happen in the United States much sooner than most of us would dare to imagine. (Read More...)

Down Goes Britain: The UK Economy Tumbles Deep Into Recession

The economic crisis that is sweeping Europe is starting to hit Britain really hard.  Over the last couple of years economists have been warning that we can’t let the “contagion” spread from troubled nations such as Greece and Portugal to the rest of Europe.  Well, it is too late for that now.  Spain and Italy are coming apart at the seams at this point, and even “stronger” nations such as the UK and France appear to be deeply troubled.  According to numbers that were released just this week, the UK economy has now contracted for three quarters in a row.  During the second quarter of 2012, the UK economy shrunk by 0.7 percent.  That was a much larger contraction than the 0.2 percent contraction that economists were forecasting.  At this point we have got a definite trend going.  During the fourth quarter of 2011, the UK economy shrunk by 0.4 percent.  During the first quarter of 2012, the UK economy shrunk by 0.3 percent.  And now in this latest quarter the contraction of the UK economy appears to be accelerating.  This economic downturn in the UK is being called “the longest double-dip recession for more than 50 years“.  So will Britain soon look like Greece and Spain and Italy or will it be able to pull out of this nosedive in time? (Read More...)

1 Through 30 – The Coming U.S. Financial Crisis By The Numbers

The United States is drowning in a sea of red ink from coast to coast and most Americans have absolutely no idea what is about to happen.  Hopefully you have started to prepare for the coming U.S. financial crisis.  If not, hopefully this article will be a wake up call for you.  Right now, governments all over Europe are on the verge of financial implosion.  Most Americans aren’t paying much attention to that, but they should be, because what is happening to Greece and Italy right now will eventually be happening here.  Just recently, the U.S. national debt passed the 15 trillion dollar mark.  State and local government debt is also at record levels.  Tens of millions of American families are in debt up to their eyeballs, and millions more Americans fell into poverty last year.  Meanwhile, the “too big to fail” banks just keep getting larger and the Federal Reserve continues to inflate the debt bubble.  At some point this debt bubble is going to burst, and when it does it is going to unleash financial hell all over America. (Read More...)

Austerity Riots – A Glimpse Of America’s Future?

Are the austerity protests and riots happening in Greece right now a glimpse of America’s future?  The truth is that both nations are absolutely drowning in debt.  It is just that the “day of reckoning” has already arrived for Greece but it has not arrived for the United States yet.  Yes, there are some important differences between the situation in Greece and the situation in the U.S., but there are also some important similarities.  Budget cuts and other austerity measures are being promoted by the political leaders of both countries. Greek citizens have reacted very negatively to the economic austerity programs that have been implemented in that nation.  As budget cuts on the federal, state and local levels in the United States start to really become painful, will we eventually see the same kind of austerity riots in this country that we are currently seeing in Greece? (Read More...)