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...)
Spain
20 Signs That Europe Is Plunging Into A Full-Blown Economic Depression
An economic nightmare is descending on Europe. With each passing month, the economic numbers across Europe get even worse. At this point it is becoming extremely difficult for anyone to deny that Europe is plunging into a full-blown economic depression. In fact, some parts of Europe are already there. In Spain the overall unemployment rate is over 22 percent, and in Greece one out of every five retail establishments has already been closed down. All over Europe, economic activity is rapidly slowing down, unemployment is skyrocketing and bad debts are unraveling. It isn’t even going to take a default by a nation such as Greece or a collapse of the euro to push Europe into an economic depression. All Europe has to do is to stay on the exact path that it is on right now and it will get there. Normally, European governments would respond to an economic slowdown by increasing government spending. But this time most of them are already drowning in debt. Instead of increasing government spending, most governments in Europe are actually cutting back. All over Europe, national governments are being encouraged to implement even more tax increases and even more budget cuts. The hope is that all of this austerity will help solve the nightmarish sovereign debt crisis that Europe is facing. But unfortunately, all of these tax increases and budget cuts are also going to involve a tremendous amount of economic pain. (Read More...)