From credit crunch to global recession
The bad news: in 2008 a global recession is bound to set in. The scant good news: the oil price will fall back and the development of environment-friendly technology will fuel investment.
The story of 2007 was the credit crunch. The story for 2008 will be global recession. Last year, the US home prices collapse was the worst since the Great Depression – a fall of 6% year on year. Starting with the sub-prime defaults, this led to huge markdowns in asset-backed securities and special investment vehicles owned by banks globally.
Global markets tumble on US recession fears
Global stock markets fell yesterday as weak economic data and downbeat comments from billionaire investor Warren Buffett led to renewed fears of a US recession.
Shares fell sharply in Asia and the falls were mirrored in Europe. The London FTSE 100 index fell 1.12 per cent, in Paris the CAC 40 index lost 1pc while in Frankfurt the Dax tumbled 0.86pc.
Asian stocks plunged with Tokyo ending down almost 4.5pc, Hong Kong tumbled 3.07pc and Seoul gave up 2.3pc. Singapore and Sydney both shed about 3pc.
Indian shares fell more than 5pc, their biggest percentage drop in six weeks. The main 30-share BSE index closed down 5.12pc, or 900.84 points, at 16,677.88.
The Tragedy Of This Recession Is Its Bad Ending Is Already Penned
Last week Bush told reporters: "I don't think we're headed to recession." But when one tried to puncture the denial, mentioning that America's energy analysts were predicting $4 gas, our oil-man president stopped him: "Wait, what did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline?" No, Mr. President, experts are. "That's interesting. I hadn't heard that."
Once again, as in a classic tragedy, crucial facts never quite make it to the king's chambers in time, setting the stage for a fateful turn of events, propelling the plot to its tragic climax.
Indeed, the next 12 acts of this tragedy have already been written. And though many folks are in denial, the consequences are painfully clear. Last week we forecast a global recession. Reader response was overwhelming. Read previous Paul B. Farrell.
One alerted us to a powerful economic report that reads like the plot lines in a Shakespearean tragedy. Twelve acts relentlessly drive the action forward in a dark yet realistic plot reading like a brutal military-style assault on markets and economies worldwide.
In The GRE Monitor, the Roubini Global Economics newsletter published by NYU Prof. Nouriel Roubini, we read of "The Rising Risk of a Systemic Financial Meltdown: Twelve Steps to Financial Disaster," a report that will never make it into any While House briefings.
Why? Roubini's 12-act drama is chilling, apocalyptic, coming at us in 12 relentless waves, tearing down the world's economic and financial system, triggering a severe recession in America that spreads globally, impacting every corner of every economy across the globe and creating havoc in world financial markets, leaving nothing intact.
This is Bush's legacy, an economic disaster no one can stop. And the more they try, the worse it gets.
Over the top? You decide. Then after you read Roubini's dark 12-act plot, we urge you to rethink your investment strategies for the years to come. Why? He warns: "The current recession looks fundamentally more severe than the [last] two for three reasons: we are experiencing the worst housing recession ever in U.S. history; a shopped-out, saving-less and debt-burdened consumer is now in financial trouble and retrenching; and we have a severe systemic financial crisis.
Forget about Washington's happy-talk about avoiding a recession. They got us into this mess and don't know how to get us out.
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