Are we witnessing the start of a historic financial meltdown in Europe? In recent days, two massive corruption scandals have greatly shaken confidence in European financial markets. The first involves Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. It is being alleged that he has been receiving illegal cash payments, and the calls for his resignation grow louder with each passing day. The second is a derivatives scandal at the third largest bank in Italy. Allegedly, there were some very large unreported derivatives deals that were supposed to help hide losses at the bank, but instead they actually made the losses much larger. The investigation that is looking into this derivatives scandal is starting to spread to other banks, and nobody is quite sure how far down the rabbit hole this thing goes. But what everyone does agree on is that this derivatives scandal has shaken up Italian politics, and the outcome of the upcoming election is now very uncertain. Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is rapidly rising in the polls, and the European establishment is less than thrilled about that. Meanwhile, stock indexes all over Europe fell rapidly on Monday, and even the Dow was down 129 points. So will all this blow over in a few days, or is this the beginning of a full-blown stock market crash in Europe? (Read More...)
Financial Meltdown
Financial Panic Sweeps Europe As The Head Of The IMF Warns Of A “1930s Depression”
Are we on the verge of another Great Depression? Christian Lagarde, the head of the IMF, said this week that if dramatic action is not taken immediately we could actually see conditions “reminiscent of the 1930s depression” and that no country on earth “will be immune to the crisis”. Right now, financial panic is sweeping across Europe, but most Americans are not too concerned about it because they simply don’t understand how important the EU is. The truth is that the EU has a much larger population than the United States does. The EU has an economy that is nearly as large as the economies of the United States and China combined. The EU has more Fortune 500 companies that the United States does, and the banking system of Europe is substantially larger than the banking system of the United States. Anyone out there that believes that a massive financial collapse in Europe would not dramatically affect the rest of the globe is being delusional. The European debt crisis is one of the biggest stories that we have seen in a long, long time and the coming financial meltdown is going to permanently change the global economy. (Read More...)
Wild And Crazy 2011: 10 History-Shattering Events That Have Shaken The Financial World To The Core
2011 has already had more history-shattering events than almost any other year since World War 2. Revolutions have swept the Middle East and much of Africa, a new war has erupted in Libya, Japan has experienced an unprecedented tsunami and a horrific nuclear crisis, the price of oil is skyrocketing, multiple nations in Europe are experiencing a financial meltdown and budget issues have pushed the U.S. government to the verge of a shutdown. In past years, it always seemed like there was time to “catch our breath” between each major crisis, but now huge events are striking in rapid-fire succession. We live at a time when wars, rumors of wars, natural disasters, bizarre occurrences and major financial problems are becoming so common that they hardly shock us anymore. 2011 truly has been one wild and crazy year, and the world is literally being transformed right in front of our eyes. (Read More...)