On opposite ends of the world, two major financial instability events continue to emerge: China’s stock markets collapsing and Greece’s possible exit from the Eurozone. Both promise to produce significant contagion effects in the global economy, now already slowing. In the first half of the show, Jack reviews the latest Greek offer to the Troika delivered this past Thursday and compares it to prior Troika and Greek positions. The conclusion is Greece appears to have caved in to Troika concession demands in exchange for a ‘smoke and mirror’ restructuring of the Greek debt. If accepted, Jack argues, it will mean the Syriza government will eventually self-destruct—which has been the objective of the Troika from the very beginning. Traditional Euro social democracy (Greece’s proposals) is no longer acceptable to banker-investor governed Neoliberal Europe. Jack then takes a detailed look at the causes of the current freefall in China’s main stock markets and the possible consequences for China and the global economy. What’s behind the 150% rise in one year and now the collapse. Jack describes China’s latest emergency extreme measures being introduced to stem the fall, by injecting more de facto ‘QE’ money into the markets to stimulate stock buying again and introducing other extreme measures to stop stock selling. Likely potential contagion effects on China’s other markets (housing, local government debt, industrial debt) and its real economy are considered. Will China growth now slow further? What are consequences for the global financial system as contagion continues to spill over to other financial asset markets globally—stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies? Even more than Greece and the Eurozone, China’s markets collapse signal the global economy has moved one step further to another financial crisis event.
