The following are 22 signs that we are on the
verge of a devastating global recession....
#1 On
Thursday it was announced that
#2
Hostess Brands, the maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, has filed for bankruptcy protection.
#3
Sears recently announced that somewhere between 100 and 120 Sears and Kmart
stores will be closing, and Sears stock has fallen nearly 60%
in just the past year.
#4 Over
the past 12 months, dozens of
prominent retailers have closed stores all over America, and one
consulting firm is projecting that there will be more
than 5,000 more store closings in 2012.
#5
Richard Bove, an analyst at
#6
Investors are pulling money out of the stock market at a rapid pace right
now. In fact, as an article posted on CNBC recently noted, investors pulled more money
out of mutual funds than they put into mutual funds for 9 weeks in a row.
Are there some people out there that are quietly repositioning their money for
tough times ahead?....
Investors yanked money out of
#7 There are signs that the Chinese economy is seriously
slowing down. The following comes from a recent article in the
Guardian....
Growth had slowed to an annual rate of 1.5% in
the second and third quarters of 2011, below the "stall speed" that
historically led to recession.
#8 The
Bank of
#9
Manufacturing activity in the euro zone has fallen for
five months in a row.
#10
#11
According to a recent article by Bloomberg,
it is being projected that the French economy is heading into a recession....
The French economy will shrink this quarter
and next, suggesting the nation is in a recession as investment and consumer spending stagnate, national statistics office Insee said.
#12 There are a
multitude of statistics that indicate that the
#13 In
the
#14 It
is being
reported that the Spanish economy contracted during the 4th quarter
of 2011.
#15 Bad
loans in
#16
According to a recent article in the
Telegraph, the Italian government is forecasting that there will be
a recession for the Italian economy in 2012....
The Italian government predicts GDP will
contract 0.4pc next year, but many economists fear the figure is optimistic.
"We can say without mincing words that we
have already slipped into recession," said Intesa
Sanpaolo analyst Paolo Mameli.
"We expect GDP to keep contracting for the next 3-4 quarters."
#17
#18 The unemployment rate in
#19
One mother, it said, ran away after handing
over her two-year-old daughter Natasha.
Four-year-old Anna was found by a teacher
clutching a note that read: 'I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because
I cannot afford to look after her. Please take good care of her. Sorry.'
#20 In
#21 In many European countries, the money supply continues to
contract rapidly. The following comes from a recent article in the
Telegraph....
Simon Ward from Henderson Global Investors
said "narrow" M1 money – which includes cash and overnight deposits,
and signals short-term spending plans – shows an alarming split between North
and South.
While real M1 deposits are still holding up in
the German bloc, the rate of fall over the last six months (annualised)
has been 20.7pc in
#22 The major industrialized nations of the world must roll over
trillions upon trillions of dollars in debt during 2012. At a time when
credit is becoming much tighter, this is going to be quite a challenge.
The following list compiled
by Bloomberg shows the amount of debt that some large nations must
roll over in 2012....
Keep
in mind that those numbers do not include any new borrowing. Those are
just old debts that must be refinanced.
As I
mentioned at the top of this article, things do not look good.
The
last thing that we need is another devastating global recession.
As I
wrote about yesterday, the
So
what will happen if this next global recession is worse than the last one?
Sadly,
the people that will get hurt the most by another recession will not be the
wealthy.
The
people that will get hurt the most will be the poor and the middle class.
So
what should all of us be doing about this?
We
should use the time during this "calm before the storm" to prepare for the
hard times that are coming.
As
always, let us hope for the best and let us prepare for the worst.
But
things certainly do not look promising for the global economy in 2012.’