11 top economists agree: our world of debt is on the edge of collapse

11 top economists agree: our world of debt is on the edge of collapse

(NaturalNews) A collection of nearly one dozen of the world's top economists and other geopolitical observers believe that the world is close to financial collapse, because so much of what passes for "the global economy" is built on false or otherwise conjured pretenses.

As collected by Michael Snyder, founder of The Economic Collapse Blog, here are what 11 experts are saying about geopolitical conditions the world over:

Bill Fleckenstein, president of Fleckenstein Capital:

They are trying to make the stock market go up and drag the economy along with it. It's not going to work. There's going to be a big accident. When people realize that it's all a charade, the dollar will tank, the stock market will tank, and hopefully bond markets will tank. Gold will rally in that period of time because it's done what it's done because people have assumed complete infallibility on the part of the central bankers.

John Ficenec, Questor editor at The Telegraph:

In the US, Professor Robert Shiller's cyclically adjusted price earnings ratio -- or Shiller CAPE -- for the S&P 500 is currently at 27.2, some 64pc above the historic average of 16.6. On only three occasions since 1882 has it been higher - in 1929, 2000 and 2007.

Ambrose Evans-Prichard, economics analyst at The Telegraph:

The eurozone will be in deflation by February, forlornly trying to ignite its damp wood by rubbing stones. Real interest rates will ratchet higher. The debt load will continue to rise at a faster pace than nominal GDP across Club Med. The region will sink deeper into a compound interest trap

The Jerome Levy Forecasting Center, which correctly predicted the bursting of the subprime mortgage bubble in 2007:

Clearly the direction of most of the recent global economic news suggests movement toward a 2015 downturn.

Paul Craig Roberts:

At any time the Western house of cards could collapse. It (the financial system) is a house of cards. There are no economic fundamentals that support stock prices -- the Dow Jones. There are no economic fundamentals that support the strong dollar...

David Tice:

I have the same kind of feel in '98 and '99; also '05 and '06. This is going to end badly. I have every confidence in the world.

Liz Capo McCormack and Suzanne Walker:

Get ready for a disastrous year for U.S. government bonds. That's the message forecasters on Wall Street are sending.

Phoenix Capital Research:

Just about everything will be hit as well. Most of the 'recovery' of the last five years has been fueled by cheap borrowed Dollars. Now that the US Dollar has broken out of a multi-year range, you're going to see more and more 'risk assets' (read: projects or investments fueled by borrowed Dollars) blow up. Oil is just the beginning, not a standalone story.

If things really pick up steam, there's over $9 TRILLION worth of potential explosions waiting in the wings. Imagine if the entire economies of both Germany and Japan exploded and you've got a decent idea of the size of the potential impact on the financial system.

Rob Kirby:

What this breakdown in the crude oil price is going to spawn another financial crisis. It will be tied to the junk debt that has been issued to finance the shale oil plays in North America. It is reported to be in the area of half a trillion dollars worth of junk debt that is held largely on the books of large financial institutions in the western world. When these bonds start to fail, they will jeopardize the future of these financial institutions. I do believe that will be the signal for the Fed to come riding to the rescue with QE4. I also think QE4 is likely going to be accompanied by bank bail-ins because we all know all western world countries have adopted bail-in legislation in their most recent budgets. The financial elites are engineering the excuse for their next round of money printing . . . and they will be confiscating money out of savings accounts and pension accounts. That's what I think is coming in the very near future.

John Ing:

The 2008 collapse was just a dress rehearsal compared to what the world is going to face this time around. This time we have governments which are even more highly leveraged than the private sector was.

So this time the collapse will be on a scale that is many magnitudes greater than what the world witnessed in 2008.

Gerald Celente:

What does the word confidence mean? Break it down. In this case confidence = con men and con game. That's all it is. So people will lose confidence in the con men because they have already shown their cards. It's a Ponzi scheme. So the con game is running out and they don't have any more cards to play.

What are they going to do? They can't raise interest rates. We saw what happened in the beginning of December when the equity markets started to unravel. So it will be a loss of confidence in the con game and the con game is soon coming to an end. That is when you are going to see panic on Wall Street and around the world.

http://www.naturalnews.com/048322_financial_collapse_Federal_Reserve_global_economy.html