SHADOWSTATS, VOOR DE ECHTE CIJFERS…

8 augustus, 2010 | door MHAAGEN |

En wat de man er achter zegt, is niet fraai : 

De markt is 2010 begonnen met de verwachting van een economische heropleving. Die veronderstelling is vals. Derhalve is de waardering van de aandelenbeurzen irreëel. Er volgt geen herstel. De overheid zal alles doen in haar macht om het tij te keren maar het zal alles slechts tijdelijke gevolgen hebben. We zijn nooit uit de recessie gekomen, de overheid maakt alles slechts erger, cf. de gigantische en nog steeds toenemende staatsschuld en deficieten. De werkloosheid proberen tegen te gaan zal kosten, de bankenindustrie is toe aan een nieuwe stimulans, de autoriteiten zullen New York of Californië niet bankroet willen laten gaan,… We spreken nu over recessies maar wat ons te wachten staat is iets veel ergers : een depressie of zelfs een grote depressie, respectievelijk een krimp van 10 en 25 % van het BNP. Hyperinflatie komt er aan. Wanneer een 100 dollar biljet dezelfde waarde als toiletpapier zal hebben, erger dan tijdens de Weimar Republiek en in Zimbabwe.

 

John Williams: Approaching the Abyss
Source: Karen Roche of The Gold Report  

ShadowStats.com Editor John Williams—to whom many Gold Report contributors look for honest data on the economy that they can trust—sees sure signs of an accelerating downward economic spiral that will lead to almost unimaginable hyperinflation in the U.S. As he says in this exclusive interview, we’re in for “a much rougher time than they had in Zimbabwe,” because we’ll have no black market currencies around to prevent the cessation of normal commerce.

ShadowStats.com is dé site om de échte economische cijfers op terug te vinden. The Gold Report interviewde de man er achter, John Williams. Wat hij te zeggen heeft is niet bepaald fraai : oplopende werkloosheid, we zijn nooit uit recessie gekomen, een staatsschuld tot in de stratosfeer – we’re going down, way down…

TGR: How big will that deficit grow in this second painful and protracted period?

JW: I can’t give you a hard number, but I can tell you this. The markets came into this year on consensus projections that we’d have positive economic growth. Forecasts for the federal deficit, treasury fundings, banking system solvency, etc. all were based on assumptions of recovery, of positive growth. Those assumptions presumably still underlie what I consider to be an irrational stock market.

But those projections and assumptions were wrong. We’re going to have negative growth. The downturn will intensify. We’re not in recovery. We have states on the brink of bankruptcy. The federal government isn’t going to let California or New York or Illinois collapse. Those are threats to the systemic survival. They’re also going to spend a lot more to support people on unemployment. Again, putting aside election year politics and such, the banking industry will need further bailout as solvency issues come to a head again. The federal deficit is going to balloon. It’s going to blow up much worse than any formulas would give you, and Treasury funding needs will explode.

TGR: Clearly you see us spiraling out of control.

JW: We’ve been talking about an economic recession, but we are headed for something far worse. I define a depression as a 10% peak-to-trough contraction in the economy. In terms of the broad economy, we’re not down 10% in GDP yet. So while we’re not formally in depression, we’re certainly seeing it in a number of indicators and I think we’ll be in a depression, with GDP down 10%, in the near future.

A contraction greater than 25% peak-to-trough puts you in a great depression. That is what I envision, but we’ll be taken there by hyperinflation and a resultant cessation of normal commerce.

TGR: Hyperinflation means different things to different people. How do you define it?

JW: My definition has been and will remain very simple. When the largest-denomination note in circulation—the $100 bill in the case of the U.S. dollar—has the same value as toilet paper, you have a hyperinflation. You saw that in the Weimar Republic. People papered their walls with money.

TGR: I think you’ve said that the only reason that Zimbabwe’s economy survived is because they started using dollars as black market currency.

JW: But you don’t have anything like that in the United States as a backup. We’re going to have a much rougher time in the U.S., of all places, than they had in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe was able to function because people could exchange the local currency into dollars, and then buy things with the dollars, so the economy continued to function. Without some kind of a backup system, as the currency becomes worthless you’ll see disruptions to key supply chains. When people don’t have food, you end up in very dangerous circumstances.