IMF Issues Worldwide Warning: 2019 The Global Economic Collapse and Bankruptcy Begins

IMF Issues Worldwide Warning: ‘Risk Of A Sharper Decline In Global Growth Certainly Increased’

As signs point to economic trouble all over the planet, pretty much everyone acknowledges the global economy is slowing down. Here’s the latest…IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde made headlines all over the globe this week when she declared that “the risk of a sharper decline in global growth has certainly increased”.  As you will see below, signs of economic trouble are popping up all over the planet, and pretty much just about everyone is now acknowledging that the global economy is slowing down.  But does that mean that we are headed for a global recession in 2019?  Well, things certainly do not look good right now, but there is still time to turn things around.  But in order to turn things in a more positive direction, something has got to be done to stop the downward momentum that seems to be accelerating in the early portion of this year.

On Monday, the IMF slashed their forecast for global economic growth for the second time in three months…

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) revised down its estimates for global growth on Monday, warning that the expansion seen in recent years is losing momentum.

The Fund now projects a 3.5 percent growth rate worldwide for 2019 and 3.6 percent for 2020. These are 0.2 and 0.1 percentage points below its last forecasts in October — making it the second downturn revision in three months.

But at least they are still projecting global economic growth this year, and many would argue that “a 3.5 percent growth rate” is wildly optimistic.

At this point, it seems like just about everywhere you look economic confidence is declining.  For example, one recent survey found that the percentage of global CEOs that believe that the world economy will slow down over the next year has jumped dramatically…

Rising populism, policy uncertainty and trade conflicts have led to a sharp drop in confidence among global CEOs.

The share of chief executives who think the global economy will slow over the next year has jumped to nearly 30% from 5% in 2018, according to a survey of 1,300 top business leaders by audit giant PwC.

At least publicly, corporate CEOs usually want to put a positive spin on the future, and so it is absolutely astounding that this number has risen so much in a single year.

But there is no denying what is happening around the world right now.  Over in Asia, China just announced that 2018 was the worst year for economic growth that country had seen in 28 years.

In addition, Chinese corporate bond defaults soared to an all-time record high in 2018, and it looks like 2019 could easily be even worse.

On the other side of the globe, Europe’s largest economy actually contracted during the third quarter…

In Europe, its largest economic powerhouse Germany has been dented after it was announced the German economy had contracted in the third quarter.

This left Berlin skirting on the fringe of recession territory with economists fearing the most powerful economy in Europe was on the brink of financial chaos.

Europe faces great uncertainty during the months ahead.  There is a very real possibility that we could have a “no deal Brexit”, Italy is teetering on the brink of complete and total financial ruin, and the entire European banking system could begin to collapse at any time.

Meanwhile, we continue to get more indications that the U.S. economy is slowing down as well.

For example, on Monday we got news that JCPenney is “on the precipice of bankruptcy”…

JCPenney already finds itself in a precarious position in the first month of 2019: stocks are dwindling, sales are falling, and its desolate boardroom is still waiting for a number of senior vacancies to be filled.

Analysts fear the multitude of problems the department store is now facing points towards a ‘broken business’ balancing on the precipice of bankruptcy.

And just like its once fierce competitor Sears, all 846 of its stores could face closure, potentially affecting thousands of workers and risking another heavy blow to an already beaten-and-bruised retail sector.

Just like Sears, JCPenney is headed for zero, but it will take some time for the process to fully play out.

And the same thing is true for the nation as a whole.  As James Howard Kunstler observed in his most recent article, our financial system “is on a slow boat to oblivion”…

As in this age of Hollywood sequels and prequels, America prefers to recycle old ideas rather than entertain new ones, so you can see exactly how the 2020 presidential election is shaping up to be a replay of the Great Depression, with Roosevelt-to-rescue! — only this time it’ll be with somebody in the role of Eleanor Roosevelt as chief executive. Donald Trump, of course, being the designated bag-holder for all the financial blunders of the past decade, gets to be Herbert Hoover. As was the case in the original, economic depression will segue into war, with maybe not such a happy ending for us as World War Two was.

There should be no doubt that the money part of the story is on a slow boat to oblivion. The world has been running on loans to such a grotesque degree that it’s managed the impressive feat of bankrupting the future. The collateral for all that debt was the conviction that there were ample amounts of future “growth” up ahead to service that debt. That conviction is now evaporating as car sales plummet, and real estate goes south, and nations twang each other over trade, and global supply lines wither. Globalism is unwinding — and not for the first time, either.

Of course most ordinary Americans are not getting prepared for what is ahead because they do not believe that anything is going to happen.

Despite an abundance of evidence to the contrary, most people believe that the system is stable and that our political leaders can easily fix any problems that may arise.

Unfortunately, the truth is not that simple.  Our problems have been building for decades, and at this point there is no way that this story is going to end well.

John Rubino: This Is New – Governments Ramp-Up Borrowing IN ANTICIPATION Of A Slowdown

John says governments have decided, for the first time since the inception of the business cycle, to preemptively attack the next recession. Here’s how…The business cycle has its stages, and they’re usually both predictable and logical. For example, governments tend to generate a lot of tax revenue late in an expansion as more people get jobs and start paying income taxes and rising stock prices generate big capital gains. Meanwhile, less has to be spent on social safety net programs because everyone is working. Combine higher tax revenues with lower spending and you get shrinking deficits.

But not this time. Government borrowing soared around the world in 2018, even as economic growth, employment and stock prices peaked. Why the change? Well, apparently governments have decided – for the first time since the inception of the business cycle – to preemptively attack the next recession.

The US, as everyone by now knows, has returned to crisis-era trillion dollar deficits even as the unemployment rate hovers around 4% and stock prices hit records. That’s historically unusual to put it mildly. But it pales next to what’s happening in China. From Doug Noland’s Credit Bubble Bulletin:

January 15 – Bloomberg: “China’s credit growth exceeded expectations in December, with the second acceleration in a row indicating the government and central bank’s efforts to spur lending are having an effect. Aggregate financing was 1.59 trillion ($235 billion) in December, the People’s Bank of China said on Tuesday. That compares with an estimated 1.3 trillion yuan in a Bloomberg survey.”

January 15 – South China Morning Post (Amanda Lee): “China’s banks extended a record 16.17 trillion yuan (US$2.4 trillion) in net new loans last year…, as policymakers pushed lenders to fund cash-strapped firms to prop up the slowing economy. The new figure, well above the previous record of 13.53 trillion yuan in 2017, is an indication that the bank has been moderately aggressive in using monetary policy to stimulate the economy, which slowed sharply as a result of the trade war with the US. Outstanding yuan loans were up 13.5% at the end of 2018 from a year earlier… In addition, debt issued by private enterprises increased by 70% year-on-year from November to December last year, indicating that the central bank’s efforts to support the private sector are working.”

There’s a strong consensus view that Beijing has things under control. Reality: China in 2019 faces a ticking Credit time bomb. Bank loans were up 13.5% over the past year and were 28% higher over two years, a precarious late-cycle inflation of Bank Credit. Ominously paralleling late-cycle U.S. mortgage finance Bubble excess, China’s Consumer Loans expanded 18.2% over the past year, 44% in two years, 77% in three years and 141% in five years. China’s industrial sector has slowed, while inflated consumer spending is indicating initial signs of an overdue pullback. Calamitous woes commence with the bursting of China’s historic housing/apartment Bubble.

Typically – and as experienced in the U.S. with problems erupting in subprime – nervous lenders and a tightening of mortgage Credit mark an inflection point followed by self-reinforcing downturns in housing prices, transactions and mortgage Credit. Yet there is nothing remotely typical when it comes to China’s Bubble. Instead of caution, lenders have looked to residential lending as a preferred (versus business) means of achieving government-dictated lending targets. Failing to learn from the dreadful U.S. experience, Beijing has used an inflating housing Bubble to compensate for structural economic shortcomings (i.e. manufacturing over-capacity). This is precariously prolonging “Terminal Phase” excess.

To sum up, China built way too many factories and now has decided to pay for the related costs by inflating a housing bubble. That doesn’t sound very smart.

But China’s screw-up is just one in a very big crowd. Noland points out that the other emerging market economies are doing something similar:

January 16 – Financial Times (Jonathan Wheatley): “Emerging-market companies have gorged on debt. Slower global growth and higher funding costs will make servicing that debt harder, just as the amount coming due this year reaches a record high. The result? Less investment for growth and yet more borrowing. These are some of the concerns raised by the Institute of International Finance… as it published its quarterly Global Debt Monitor… The world is ‘pushing at the boundaries of comfortably sustainable debt,’ says Sonja Gibbs, managing director at the IIF. ‘Higher debt levels [in emerging markets] really divert resources from more productive areas. This increasingly worries us.’ Of particular concern is the non-financial corporate sector in emerging markets (EMs), where debts are equal to 93.6% of GDP. That is more than among the same group in developed markets, at 91.1% of GDP.”

January 16 – Barron’s (Reshma Kapadia): “A record $3.9 trillion of emerging market bonds and syndicated loans comes due through the end of 2020. Most of the redemptions in 2019 will be outside of the financial sector, mainly from large corporate borrowers in China, Turkey, and South Africa. The question will be if they can refinance the debt…”

So here we are, ten years into an expansion (which is four years longer than the average one) and governments are not only taking on massive new debts themselves but tricking/cajoling their companies and consumers into doing the same. This will (if cause and effect still matter) do several things:

1) It will make year-ahead growth higher than it would otherwise have been, and combine with the probable resolution of the US/China trade war to give the expansion a brief second wind.

2) It will further tighten labor markets, raising wages and pushing overall inflation up a point or two, which in turn will boost/support interest rates.

3) Higher-than-otherwise interest rates (or simple debt-related exhaustion) will bring the long-awaited recession. And societies around the world will realize they’ve already borrowed all that anyone will lend them, leaving them with very few remaining weapons to fight a deflationary crash.

In other words, the current debt binge is the culmination of a decade of can-kicking in which new credit has filled the gaps created by past mistakes. There’s a limit to how far this can go, and the recession of 2020 might reveal it.

Ron Paul: Fire The Fed?

By firing Powell, President Trump would once and for all dispel the myth that the Federal Reserve is free from political interference…President Trump’s frustration with the Federal Reserve’s (minuscule) interest rate increases that he blames for the downturn in the stock market has reportedly led him to inquire if he has the authority to remove Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. Chairman Powell has stated that he would not comply with a presidential request for his resignation, meaning President Trump would have to fire Powell if Trump was serious about removing him.

The law creating the Federal Reserve gives the president power to remove members of the Federal Reserve Board — including the chairman — “for cause.” The law is silent on what does, and does not, constitute a justifiable cause for removal. So, President Trump may be able to fire Powell for not tailoring monetary policy to the president’s liking.

By firing Powell, President Trump would once and for all dispel the myth that the Federal Reserve is free from political interference. All modern presidents have tried to influence the Federal Reserve’s policies. Is Trump’s threatening to fire Powell worse than President Lyndon Johnson shoving a Fed chairman against a wall after the Federal Reserve increased interest rates? Or worse than President Carter “promoting” an uncooperative Fed chairman to Treasury secretary?

Yet, until President Trump began attacking the Fed on Twitter, the only individuals expressing concerns about political interference with the Federal Reserve in recent years were those claiming the Audit the Fed bill politicizes monetary policy. The truth is that the audit bill, which was recently reintroduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and will soon be reintroduced in the Senate by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), does not in any way expand Congress’ authority over the Fed. The bill simply authorizes the General Accountability Office to perform a full audit of the Fed’s conduct of monetary policy, including the Fed’s dealings with Wall Street and foreign central banks and governments.

Many Audit he Fed supporters have no desire to give Congress or the president authority over any aspect of monetary policy, including the ability to set interest rates. Interest rates are the price of money. Like all prices, interest rates should be set by the market, not by central planners. It is amazing that even many economists who generally support free markets and oppose central planning support allowing a government-created central bank to influence something as fundamental as the price of money.

Those who claim that auditing the Fed will jeopardize the economy are implicitly saying that the current system is flawed. After all, how stable can a system be if it is threatened by transparency?

Auditing the Fed is supported by nearly 75 percent of Americans. In Congress, the bill has been supported not just by conservatives and libertarians, but by progressives in Congress like Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, and Peter DeFazio. President Trump championed auditing the Federal Reserve during his 2016 campaign. But, despite his recent criticism of the Fed, he has not promoted the legislation since his election.

As the US economy falls into another Federal Reserve-caused economic downturn, support for auditing the Fed will grow among Americans of all political ideologies. Congress and the president can and must come together to tear down the wall of secrecy around the central bank. Auditing the Fed is the first step in changing the monetary policy that has created a debt-and-bubble-based economy; facilitated the rise of the welfare-warfare state; and burdened Americans with a hidden, constantly increasing, and regressive inflation tax.