What In The World Just Happened To The New York Stock Exchange?

Do you believe that the New York Stock Exchange shut down because of a “technical glitch” on Wednesday?  At 11:32 AM on Wednesday morning, trading on the New York Stock Exchange was halted due to “internal technical issues”, and it did not resume until 3:10 PM.  Officials insist that there is no evidence that a cyberattack caused the technical problems even though hactivists had hinted that something may happen the night before.  Adding to the suspicion is the fact that United Airlines and the Wall Street Journal also experienced very serious “technical glitches” on Wednesday.  Others found it very curious that trading on the NYSE was halted just after Chinese stocks had absolutely plummeted the night before.  In fact, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index experienced the largest one day decline that we have witnessed since November 2008.  So is there more going on here than meets the eye? (Read More....)

European Stocks, Chinese Stocks And Commodities Are All Crashing – Are U.S. Stocks Next?

A global stock market crash has begun.  European stocks are crashing, Chinese stocks are crashing, and commodities are crashing.  And guess what?  All of those things happened before U.S. stocks crashed in the fall of 2008 too.  In so many ways, it seems like we are watching a replay of the financial crisis of 2008, but this time around the world is in far worse shape financially.  Global debt levels are at an all-time high, the 75 trillion dollar global shadow banking system could implode at any time, and there are hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivatives that threaten to wipe out major banks all over the planet.  The last major worldwide financial crash was almost seven years ago, and very little has been done since that time to prepare for the next one.  If global markets do not calm down, we could see carnage in the months ahead that is absolutely unprecedented. (Read More....)

The German Siege Of Greece Begins (No, This Is Not A Repeat From 1941)

Did you notice that Greece’s creditors are not rushing to offer the Greeks a new deal in the wake of the stunning referendum result on Sunday?  In fact, it is being reported that the initial reaction to the “no” vote from top European politicians was “a thunderous silence“.  Needless to say, the European elite were not pleased by how the Greek people voted, but they still have all of the leverage.  In particular, it is the Germans that are holding all of the cards.  If the Germans want to cave in and give the Greeks the kind of deal that they desire, everyone else would follow suit.  And if the Germans want to maintain a hard line with Greece, they can block any deal from happening all by themselves.  So in the final analysis, this is really an economic test of wills between Germany and Greece, and time is on Germany’s side.  Germany doesn’t have to offer anything new.  The Germans can just sit back and wait for the Greek government to default on their debts, for Greek banks to totally run out of cash and for civil unrest to erupt in Greek cities as the economy grinds to a standstill. (Read More....)

Greece Votes NO – Let The Chaos Begin…

The result of the referendum in Greece is a great victory for freedom, but it is also threatens to unleash unprecedented economic chaos all across Europe.  With almost all of the votes counted, it is being reported that approximately 61 percent of Greeks have voted “no” and only about 39 percent of Greeks have voted “yes”.  This is a much larger margin of victory for the “no” side than almost everyone was anticipating, and it represents a stunning rejection of European austerity.  Massive celebrations have erupted on the streets of Athens and other major Greek cities, but the euphoria may not last long.  Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is promising that Greece will be able to stay in the euro, but that gives EU bureaucrats and the IMF a tremendous amount of power, because at this point the Greek government is flat broke.  Without more money from the EU and the IMF, the Greek government will not be able to pay its bills and virtually all Greek banks will inevitably collapse.  Meanwhile, the rest of Europe is about to experience a tremendous amount of pain as financial markets respond to the results of this referendum.  The euro is already plummeting, and most analysts expect European bond yields to soar and European stocks to drop substantially when trading opens on Monday morning. (Read More....)

Guess What Happened The Last Time The Chinese Stock Market Crashed Like This?

The second largest stock market in the entire world is collapsing right in front of our eyes.  Since hitting a peak in June, the most important Chinese stock market index has plummeted by well over 20 percent, and more than 3 trillion dollars of “paper wealth” has been wiped out.  Of course the Shanghai Composite Index is still way above the level it was sitting at exactly one year ago, but what is so disturbing about this current crash is that it is so similar to what we witnessed just prior to the great financial crisis of 2008 in the United States.  From October 2006 to October 2007, the Shanghai Composite Index more than tripled in value.  It was the greatest stock market surge in Chinese history.  But after hitting a peak, it began to fall dramatically.  From October 2007 to October 2008, the Shanghai Composite Index absolutely crashed.  In the end, more than two-thirds of all wealth in the market was completely wiped out.  You can see all of this on a chart that you can find right here.  What makes this so important to U.S. investors is the fact that Chinese stocks started crashing well before U.S. stocks started crashing during the last financial crisis, and now it is happening again.  Is this yet another sign that a U.S. stock market crash is imminent? (Read More....)

Why The Puerto Rico Debt Crisis Is Such A Huge Threat To The U.S. Financial System

The debt crisis in Puerto Rico could potentially cost financial institutions in the United States tens of billions of dollars in losses.  This week, Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla publicly announced that Puerto Rico’s  73 billion dollar debt is “not payable,” and a special adviser that was recently appointed to help straighten out the island’s finances said that it is “insolvent” and will totally run out of cash very shortly.  At this point, Puerto Rico’s debt is approximately 15 times larger than the per capita median debt of the 50 U.S. states.  Yes, the Greek debt crisis is larger, as Greece currently owes about $350 billion to the rest of the planet.  But only about $14 billion of that total is owed to U.S. financial institutions.  But with Puerto Rico, things are very different.  Just about the entire 73 billion dollar debt is owed to U.S. financial institutions, and this could potentially cause massive problems for some extremely leveraged Wall Street firms. (Read More....)

The 75 Trillion Dollar Shadow Banking System Is In Danger Of Collapsing

Keep an eye on the shadow banking system – it is about to be shaken to the core.  According to the Financial Stability Board, the size of the global shadow banking system has reached an astounding 75 trillion dollars.  It has approximately tripled in size since 2002.  In the U.S. alone, the size of the shadow banking system is approximately 24 trillion dollars.  At this point, shadow banking assets in the United States are even greater than those of conventional banks.  These shadow banks are largely unregulated, but governments around the world have been extremely hesitant to crack down on them because these nonbank lenders have helped fuel economic growth.  But in the end, we will all likely pay a very great price for allowing these exceedingly reckless financial institutions to run wild. (Read More....)

16 Facts About The Tremendous Financial Devastation That We Are Seeing All Over The World

As we enter the second half of 2015, financial panic has gripped most of the globe.  Stock prices are crashing in China, in Europe and in the United States.  Greece is on the verge of a historic default, and now Puerto Rico and Ukraine are both threatening to default on their debts if they do not receive concessions from their creditors.  Not since the financial crisis of 2008 has so much financial chaos been unleashed all at once.  Could it be possible that the great financial crisis of 2015 has begun?  The following are 16 facts about the tremendous financial devastation that is happening all over the world right now… (Read More....)

Warren Buffett: Derivatives Are Still Weapons Of Mass Destruction And ‘Are Likely To Cause Big Trouble’

After all these years, the most famous investor in the world still believes that derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction.  And you know what?  He is exactly right.  The next great global financial collapse that so many are warning about is nearly upon us, and when it arrives derivatives are going to play a starring role.  When many people hear the word “derivatives”, they tend to tune out because it is a word that sounds very complicated.  And without a doubt, derivatives can be enormously complex.  But what I try to do is to take complex subjects and break them down into simple terms.  At their core, derivatives represent nothing more than a legalized form of gambling.  A derivative is essentially a bet that something either will or will not happen in the future.  Ultimately, someone will win money and someone will lose money.  There are hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of these bets floating around out there, and one of these days this gigantic time bomb is going to go off and absolutely cripple the entire global financial system. (Read More....)

Lindsey Williams, Martin Armstrong And Alex Jones All Warn About What Is Coming In The Fall Of 2015

Not since the financial crash of 2008 have so many prominent people issued such urgent warnings about a specific time period.  Almost daily now, really big names are coming out with chilling predictions about what they believe is going to happen during the second half of 2015.  But it isn’t just that these people have a “bad feeling” about things.  The truth is that we are witnessing a confluence of circumstances and events in the second half of this year that is unprecedented.  This is something that I covered in a previous article that went mega-viral all over the Internet entitled “7 Key Events That Are Going To Happen By The End Of September“.  Personally, I have never been more concerned about any period of time than I am about the second half of 2015.  And as you will see below, I am definitely not alone. (Read More....)

Signs Of Financial Turmoil In Europe, China And The United States

As we move toward the second half of 2015, signs of financial turmoil are appearing all over the globe.  In Greece, a full blown bank run is happening right now.  Approximately 2 billion euros were pulled out of Greek banks in just the past three days, Barclays says that capital controls are “imminent” unless a debt deal is struck, and there are reports that preparations are being made for a “bank holiday” in Greece.  Meanwhile, Chinese stocks are absolutely crashing.  The Shanghai Composite Index was down more than 13 percent this week alone.  That was the largest one week decline since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.  In the U.S., stocks aren’t crashing yet, but we just witnessed one of the largest one week outflows of capital from the bond markets that we have ever witnessed.  Slowly but surely, we are starting to see the smart money head for the exits.  As one Swedish fund manager put it recently, everyone wants “to avoid being caught on the wrong side of markets once the herd realizes stocks are over-valued“. (Read More....)

10 Very Strange Things That Have Happened In Just The Past Few Weeks

Have you noticed that events have begun to accelerate?  Over the past few weeks, things have officially started to get very weird.  Chinese stocks are crashing, the Greek debt crisis is spiraling out of control, the New York Stock Exchange was down for about four hours on Wednesday thanks to a “technical glitch”, and global politicians have been acting very strangely.  After several years of relative calm, could it be possible that the second half of 2015 will usher in a time of chaos and confusion on a worldwide scale?  Personally, I have never been more concerned about a period of time as I am about the last six months of 2015.  And if I am right, what we have seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg.  The following are 10 very strange things that have happened in just the past few weeks… (Read More...)

EU Makes Greece ‘An Offer They Can’t Refuse': Agree To A Deal By Sunday Or Go Bankrupt

It looks like we aren’t going to have to wait much longer to see if Greece remains part of the eurozone or not.  Instead of softening their demands in the wake of the Greek referendum, European leaders have given the Greek government an ultimatum.  On Tuesday night, EU officials gave Greece a deadline of Thursday to submit a new proposal and a deadline of Sunday for agreeing to a deal.  If a deal is not reached on Sunday, all aid to Greece will be cut off and the nation will be faced with financial oblivion and a forced exit from the common currency.  But Angela Merkel has already made it abundantly clear that any new deal will not include a debt haircut – one of the key things that the Greek government wanted.  If a deal is actually made, it is almost certainly going to look very much like what Greece’s creditors have been offering all along.  Needless to say, this is precisely what the Greek people just voted against, but the pressure on Greek leadership is immense at this point.  In essence, they are being given “an offer they can’t refuse”.  So will the Greek government buckle under this mobster-like intimidation? (Read More...)

Bare Supermarket Shelves In Greece Should Be A Huge Wake Up Call To Millions Of Clueless Americans

What you are watching unfold in Greece right now is eventually going to come to your own neighborhood.  Someday, people living all around you will be storming the supermarkets in a desperate attempt to secure the food and supplies that they neglected to store up when they had the chance.  Of course the Greeks never thought that it would happen to them either.  Their civilization had endured for thousands of years, and they were a part of the most powerful economic alliance on the face of the planet.  Most Greeks never imagined that they would be plunged into a multi-year economic depression that would ultimately lead to “bank holidays”, long lines at ATM machines, and people diving into dumpsters in a frantic search for something to sell.  And this is just the beginning of the chaos in Greece – things are going to get much, much worse for them.  Hopefully, this will serve as a wake up call for millions upon millions of clueless Americans out there, because we are on the exact same path that Greece has gone down.  The sad truth is that no amount of “American exceptionalism” is going to prevent us from suffering the consequences of decades of very foolish decisions.  We are steamrolling toward our own version of economic collapse, and when that time arrives you don’t want to be caught totally unprepared for it. (Read More...)

They Want To Use ‘Hate Speech Laws’ To Destroy Freedom Of Speech In America

Hate speech laws are going in all around the world, and progressive activists in the United States want to use these kinds of laws to destroy free speech in America.  You see, the truth is that these hate speech laws that are being implemented all over the planet are not just about preventing speech that promotes violence or genocide against a particular group of people.  Instead, these laws are written in such a way that anyone that says something that “offends” or “insults” someone else is guilty of “hate speech”.  Even if you never intended to offend anyone and you had no idea that your words were insulting, in some countries you can be detained without bail and sentenced to years in prison for such speech.  Today, there are highly restrictive hate speech laws in Canada, in Mexico and in virtually every single European nation.  The United States is still an exception, but the truth is that our liberties and freedoms are being eroded every single day, and it is only a matter of time until “hate speech laws” are used to take away our freedom of speech too. (Read More...)

Government Trolls Are Using ‘Psychology-Based Influence Techniques’ On YouTube, Facebook And Twitter

Have you ever come across someone on the Internet that you suspected was a paid government troll?  Well, there is a very good chance that you were not imagining things.  Thanks to Edward Snowden, we now have solid proof that paid government trolls are using “psychology-based influence techniques” on social media websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.  Documents leaked by Snowden also reveal that government agents have been conducting denial-of-service attacks, flooding social media websites with thinly veiled propaganda and have been purposely attempting to warp public discourse online.  If we do not stand up and object to this kind of Orwellian behavior, it is only going to get worse and worse. (Read More...)

Obamacare Travesty: The Supreme Court Continues To Make Stuff Up Out Of Thin Air

Thanks to the Supreme Court’s willingness to make stuff up, Obamacare has been saved once again.  In order to save Obamacare from utter disaster, Chief Justice Roberts essentially rewrote the law.  If you are thinking that the Supreme Court is not supposed to do that, you would be right.  But this is what our judicial system has devolved into.  When I was in law school, I was horrified to discover that most judges in our country just do whatever they feel like doing.  Instead of applying the law to the facts and coming to a fair and unbiased judgment, most judges in America just do whatever they want to do and then search for some law or case precedent that they can use to justify their decision.  If there is no law or case precedent, some federal judges even go outside of the country to find justification for their absolutely ridiculous rulings.  There have been instances where international law or international standards of morality have been cited as authority for a decision in a federal case.  We have become a lawless land where the letter of the law no longer holds any real meaning, and where tyrannical judges just make stuff up out of thin air in order to advance their own personal political agendas. (Read More...)

Why Is NASA Working On A Way To Destroy Asteroids Using Nuclear Weapons?

Yes, I know that headline sounds like it comes from the 1998 movie “Armageddon” starting Bruce Willis, but this is actually happening.  NASA and the National Nuclear Security Administration are teaming up to try to figure out a way to use nuclear weapons to either destroy threatening asteroids or to at least nudge them off course.  This seems very odd considering the fact that just a couple of weeks ago NASA publicly announced that it knew of “no asteroid or comet currently on a collision course with Earth” and that “no large object is likely to strike the Earth any time in the next several hundred years“.  If what NASA told us previously is true, than it would seem that it would be a tremendous waste of time, money and resources to work on a way to destroy asteroids using nuclear weapons.  Why is NASA suddenly so interested in the threat of large asteroids if one is not likely to hit us “any time in the next several hundred years”?  Could it be possible that they know something that they are not telling us? (Read More...)

Joel Rosenberg: ‘Something is coming. I don’t know what. But we must be ready’

Do you also have the feeling that something really BIG is coming?  Recently, there has been quite a bit of chatter on the Internet about what the second half of 2015 will bring.  During the last six months of this calendar year, we are going to witness a remarkable confluence of circumstances and events, and this is something that I covered in a previous article entitled “7 Key Events That Are Going To Happen By The End Of September“.  But in addition to all of the things that we can point to outwardly, a lot of very prominent individuals are also really feeling an inner “urgency” regarding what is about to happen to this country.  For example, Bible prophecy expert Joel C. Rosenberg just posted an ominous message on his own personal blog in which he stated that “something is coming” and that “we must be ready”… (Read More...)