Via CNBC and Cryptogon.com:
The United States may be on course to lose its ‘AAA’ rating due to the large amount of debt it has accumulated, according to Martin Hennecke, senior manager of private clients at Tyche.
"The U.S. might really have to look at a default on the bankruptcy reorganization of the present financial system" and the bankruptcy of the government is not out of the realm of possibility, Hennecke said.
"In the United States there is already a funding crisis, and they will have to sell a lot more bonds next year to fund the bailout packages that have already been signed off," Hennecke told CNBC.
In order to solve or stem the economic slowdown, Hennecke suggested the US would have to radically reduce spending across all sectors and recall all its troops from around the world.
As for a stimulus package, there is not much of an industry left to stimulate back into life, Hennecke said.
If you watch the video from CNBC here it's pretty interesting how the pundits/hosts jump all over this guy. It's like he's saying something that you're just not supposed to say out loud. And that other asshole fellow responds that hey, the U.S. taxpayer can always pay for anything, no matter how bad things get, if the U.S. needs money, it can get it in "an instant" by raising taxes! Pretty scary, the absolute idiocy behind this statement.
Cool, just found the Youtube of the exchange, so I can embed:
And for more doom and gloom, you can't top Gerald Celente, who has a rather good record of predicting future events:
On the geopolitical and economic fronts, Celente and The Trends Research Institute are credited with forecasting many major trends, including the collapse of the Soviet Union, the last two recessions, the dot-com meltdown, the 1997 Asian currency crisis, the 1987 world stock market crash, increased terrorism against America, "Crusades 2000," and the quagmire in Iraq ... before war began.
This was diaried before, here, and most commentors ridiculed him or accused him or being a right wing tool. However, he claims to be a "political atheist" and many of his predictions from the past eight years were quite critical (in hindsight) of the Bush administration.
Here, he's interviewed on Fox business news, telling what he thinks the future holds. And it ain't pretty:
Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.
"We’re going to see the end of the retail Christmas....we’re going to see a fundamental shift take place....putting food on the table is going to be more important that putting gifts under the Christmas tree," said Celente, adding that the situation would be "worse than the great depression".
"America’s going to go through a transition the likes of which no one is prepared for," said Celente, noting that people’s refusal to acknowledge that America was even in a recession highlights how big a problem denial is in being ready for the true scale of the crisis.
Then you've got the Mayor of Chicago warning that we're headed for a very frightening economy indeed:
He disclosed that corporate leaders are telling him they are planning huge layoffs in November and December, which will leave many Chicagoans out of work.
"This is going to be all year, so it’s going to be a very frightening economy," Mayor Daley said. "Each one tells me what they’re laying off, and they’re going to double that next year. We’re talking huge numbers of permanent layoffs for people in the economy. It’s going to have a huge effect on all businesses."
The mayor said the gravity of the situation cannot be underestimated.
And don't forget the IMF predicted all of this back in March! Yes, in March. I wrote about it here, in IMF: "Think the unthinkable":
IMF tells states to plan for the worst
Governments might have to intervene with taxpayers’ money to shore up the financial system and prevent a "downward credit spiral" from taking hold, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday.
And yet long after this came out from the IMF, our politicians were telling us that the economy was sound. Nice.
Oh, and the Saudis are starting to get in on the gold hoarding, apparently having purchased 3.5 billion dollars worth of the stuff just recently:
Riyadh: There has been an unprecedented demand for gold in the Saudi market recently, with over 13 billion Saudi riyals (Dh12.75 billion) being spent on the yellow metal during the last two weeks.
Anyway, if you're having trouble staying awake tonight, this is a great way to beat the sleep demons. Ha!
Fasten your seat belts. It's gonna be a bumpy ride ....