Alternative Visions – Global Currency Wars & Devaluations Poised to Accelerate in 2016 – 12.04.15

Jack Rasmus looks at yesterday’s decision by the European Central Bank to make token changes to its QE policies, Japan’s central bank rumors of more QE, and the US Federal Reserve’s imminent raising of interest rates later this month. Why the ECB did not go ‘all in’ to expand its QE? Reasons: waiting on US Fed to move first, weaken German opposition to a later big QE boost, and ‘holding its powder’ for possible worse deflation and EU economy in 2016. Japan waiting on both US and Europe. Meanwhile, US Fed caves in to political moves by Congress attacking it. Conclusion: more QE in 2016, more currency devaluation, more pain in emerging markets and slowing of US exports and manufacturing, and China need to devaluate further next year. Recent economic news of importance is reviewed: oil price glut to continue despite Vienna OPEC meeting; China’s Yuan approved by IMF as global currency, and Brazil’s economy now tipping over into depression. Jack concludes with latest review of US economic performance: manufacturing and exports contracting, business inventories excess and spending, US residential housing growth now spent and flattening, poor Xmas retail sales emerging, auto sales based on debt reaching peak, savings from gasoline price declines diverting to rents, education and health care price increases, and now service sector growth slowing rapidly. Next Week show theme: ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy, Part 1’, as Jack reviews conclusions of his just published book.

Yves Smith – “Stunning” Rise in Death Rate, Pain Levels for White Middle-Aged, Less Educated Whites

One of the long standing patterns in economies showing economic growth is longer life spans, and falls are see the result of severe distress and dislocation, as took place in the period right after the fall of the Soviet Union, when the expectancies of adult men fell by over seven years. The US has just become the first country to …

These 10 States Account for a Whopping 78% in Sales of Organic Food

Consumer awareness and environmental concerns seem to be driving the country’s organic lifestyle trend. Photo credit: USDA California makes up the biggest slice of the country’s organic market with a stunning $2.2 billion in sales (41 percent of the national total), trouncing second place Washington’s $515 million in sales, according to the latest Organic Survey from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service …

Larry Schwartz – The 9 Most Expensive Medicines in the World—Courtesy of Big Pharma

Hedge funder Martin Shkreli reminded everyone of the sky-high—and seemingly arbitrary—costs of prescription medicines in this country when he bought and immediately increased the price of an established drug used to fight a parasitic infection. The price hike was eye-popping, from $13.50 a pill to $750 per pill, prompting Dr. Judith Aberg of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount …

Gail Tverberg – How our energy problem leads to a debt collapse problem

Usually, we don’t stop to think about how the whole economy works together. A major reason is that we have been lacking data to see long-term relationships. In this post, I show some longer-term time series relating to energy growth, GDP growth, and debt growth–going back to 1820 in some cases–that help us understand our situation better. When examining these …

Citi Just Made “Global Recession In 2016” Its Base Case Scenario

Over the weekend, we reported that in a dramatic turn of events, the research division of Japan’s second biggest brokerage house, Daiwa, did what nobody else has done before and released a report in which it made a global financial “meltdown”, one resulting from nothing short of a Chinese economic cataclysm its base case scenario, its base case. It added …

Nick Beams – The G20 summit: A spectacle of political bankruptcy

The meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers held in Ankara, Turkey over the weekend underscored the inability of the major capitalist powers to initiate any measures to halt the recessionary forces overtaking the world economy. Rather than a proposal for concerted action, the official communique was a public relations exercise aimed at masking the acuteness of the crisis …

Pepe Escobar – Welcome to the trade deal wars

BANGKOK — China continues to grow at a not too shabby 7%. And yet, because of the yuan devaluation and the sharp drop in the stock market, in most Western capitals the narrative switched to Armageddon descended over an economic model that generated, over the years, six-fold growth in Chinese GDP. Few are aware that Beijing, simultaneously, is engaged in …

Chris Hedges – The Great Unraveling

The ideological and physical hold of American imperial power, buttressed by the utopian ideology of neoliberalismand global capitalism, is unraveling. Most, including many of those at the heart of the American empire, recognize that every promise made by the proponents of neoliberalism is a lie. Global wealth, rather than being spread equitably, as neoliberal proponents promised, has been funneled upward into …