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A Quadrillion Yen And Counting – The Japanese Debt Bomb Could Set Off Global Panic At Any Moment
How much is 1,000,000,000,000,000 yen worth? Well, a quadrillion yen is worth approximately 10.5 trillion dollars. It is an amount of money that is larger than the “the economies of Germany, France and the U.K. combined“. It is such an astounding amount of debt that it is hard to even get your mind around it. The government debt to GDP ratio in Japan will reach 247 percent this year, and the Japanese currently spend about 50 percent of all central government tax revenue on debt service. Realistically, there are only two ways out of this overwhelming debt trap for the Japanese. Either they default or they try to inflate the debt away. At this point, the Japanese have chosen to try to inflate the debt away. They have initiated the greatest quantitative easing experiment that a major industrialized nation has attempted since the days of the Weimar Republic. Over the next two years, the Bank of Japan plans to zap 60 trillion yen into existence out of thin air and use it to buy Read more…
S&P Downgrades Greece to ‘Selective Default’
Greece’s credit ratings were cut to “Selective Default” by Standard & Poor’s after it negotiated the biggest sovereign debt restructuring in history.
S&P dropped Greece’s rating from CC, two levels above default, after the government added clauses to its debt designed to mop up investors unwilling to take part in the exchange, the New York-based company said in a statement Monday.
The downgrade follows a reduction last week by Fitch Ratings to C, while Moody’s Investors Service has said it will cut the nation to its lowest rating. Greece published the formal offer document last week for its agreement to exchange bonds for new securities, with investors taking a Read more…
U.S. National Debt Is 5000 Times Larger Than When The Federal Reserve Was Created
Have you noticed that very few people in the mainstream media ever directly criticize the Federal Reserve? But why should that be the case? Criticizing top politicians from both major political parties has become a national pastime. Most Americans love to throw mud at either the Republicans or the Democrats. But we are told that the Federal Reserve is “above politics” and that it is absolutely vital that the Fed remain “independent”. The reality is that the Federal Reserve has more control over the performance of the U.S. economy than the president even does, and yet most Americans never spend much time thinking about the Fed at all. It is almost as if Read more…
US debt crisis: US House passes debt bill
As the House of Representatives passed a last minute bill to raise the US borrowing limit while cutting spending by $2.4 trillion, Left-wingers felt betrayed by the White House, saying the price paid to win Republican support had been much too high.
The legislation is due to be approved by the Senate on Tuesday, just hours before the US was due default on its obligations for the first time in its history.
It was approved by 269 votes to 161 votes as both discontented liberals and Tea Party Republicans who wanted even more spending cuts voted against.
Representative Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat, said: “This deal is a sugar-coated Satan sandwich. If you lift the bun, you will not like what you see.”
Another, Cedric Richmond from New Orleans, said he feared it would have a “devastating impact” on working and middle class families, whom Read more…
The United States Only Has $54 Billion Of Cash Left In The Bank
Um, John, we’re about to go broke. What say we call off the circus act and finally do something about it?
Image: AP Photo/Harry Hamburg
Maybe this news will wake up those irresponsible idiots in Washington.The United States only has $54 billion of cash left in the bank.
That’s down from $100+ billion only eight days ago.
In the middle of last week came the shocking news that Apple, Inc., had more cash than the United States. Now, Apple has a lot more cash than the United States.
By early next week, if Congress can’t get its act together, the United States will have less cash than Google. Then Salesforce.com. Then, eventually, Pets.com.
Maybe, instead of preening in front of TV cameras, Congress folks should just hit the streets of Washington with hats in hand this weekend. If all 535 members spend all weekend out on the Mall, we might scrape together enough cash to last a few more hours. And these efforts will certainly Read more…
What happens if the U.S. defaults?
Blank U.S. Treasury cheques are run through a printer at the U.S. Treasury printing facility July 18 in Philadelphia.The first payments that stand to be affected if the U.S. government defaults on Aug. 2 would be some $23 billion US in Social Security benefit cheques. (William Thomas Cain/Getty)How a default would unfold immediately appears relatively straightforward. It’s the reaction that no one can predict, because it’s never happened before.
The first move will be made by the U.S. Federal Reserve. The Fed is the Treasury Department’s bank, handling government cheques and lending to banks which borrow using U.S. Treasury debt as collateral.
One day — the U.S. government has estimated it will be Aug. 2 — the Fed will serve notice on the government that its account at the Fed will be in overdraft by the end of the day, in violation of the Federal Reserve Act.
On Aug. 3, some Read more…
Gold rises as U.S. debt impasse continues
TOKYO (MarketWatch) — Gold futures continued to rise Wednesday as a prolonged standoff in Washington over hiking the U.S. debt ceiling continued.
Gold for August delivery /quotes/zigman/700181 GC1Q +0.42% , the contract with the most volume, rose $5.30, or 0.3% to $1,622.00 an ounce in electronic trading.
The December contract /quotes/zigman/661658 GC1Z +0.41% , which has the most open interest, was at $1,623.90 an ounce, up $4.50, or 0.3%, after earlier rising to a fresh peak of $1,626.90.
On Tuesday, August gold added $4.60, or 0.3%, to end at $1,616.80 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The December gold contract added Read more…
A visualization of the US Debt
US raised debt ceiling 102 times – economist
President Obama has warned the US is running out of time to deal with its financial troubles – the Congress must raise the current $14.3-trillion debt ceiling again. And as Professor Rodrigue Tremblay told RT, this has become a tradition in the US.
The US repeatedly gets away with raising the debt ceiling, Rodrigue Tremblay told RT.
“This system that the US has, has been in place since 1917. They raise the debt ceiling each year, they have done it 102 times; eight times under George W. Bush alone. Most countries do not run their Read more…
America’s Debt Could Soon Spark A European-Style Crisis
Republicans seized on the nonpartisan report to renew their push to reduce costs in federal benefit programs such as Medicare, the federal government health care program that benefits the elderly.
At issue is the $9.7 trillion of US debt held by investors and foreign countries like China, the measure that economists deem most important. Government accounts like the Social Security trust funds account for the rest of the $14.3 trillion total debt.
Democrats and Republicans have been stepping up budget talks aimed at averting what could be the disastrous first-ever default on U.S. government debt. A bipartisan group led by Vice President Joe Biden tasked with reaching an agreement has not made the politically difficult compromises on the larger issues, such as Read more…
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