Thursday, February 24, 2011

It's Not an Arab Revolution ... It's a GLOBAL Revolution

While the revolution in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other North African countries may seem like an "Arab revolt", it's actually worldwide. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8& ... 0e204a&z=3

Protests involving thousands of protesters have recently been held in:

•Greece http://www.windsorstar.com/news/Riots+b ... story.html

•India http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12549050

•North Korea http://english.chosun.com/site/data/htm ... 00582.html

• China http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110220/ap_ ... revolution

• Halabja
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast ... .protests/ Kut http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12493712 Sulaimaniya http://www.juancole.com/2011/02/iraq-ro ... aniya.html and other Iraqi towns

• Iran http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middl ... 99951.html

• And elsewhere http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8& ... 0e204a&z=3

Predicted Years Ago

The worldwide riots are not mysterious or unforeseeable. They've been predicted for years, and are a direct result of the bad policy choices made by most nations worldwide.

The Bank for International Settlements - the world's most prestigious financial agency, nicknamed the "central banks' central bank" - warned in December 2008 that the bailouts and other bank rescue programs were putting nations were transferring risks from private companies to nations.

As I noted at the time: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2008/12/ ... -says.html

BIS points out in a new report that the bank rescue packages have transferred significant risks onto government balance sheets, which is reflected in the corresponding widening of sovereign credit default swaps:

The scope and magnitude of the bank rescue packages also meant that significant risks had been transferred onto government balance sheets. This was particularly apparent in the market for CDS referencing sovereigns involved either in large individual bank rescues or in broad-based support packages for the financial sector, including the United States. While such CDS were thinly traded prior to the announced rescue packages, spreads widened suddenly on increased demand for credit protection, while corresponding financial sector spreads tightened.
In other words, by assuming huge portions of the risk from banks trading in toxic derivatives, and by spending trillions that they don't have, central banks have put their countries at risk ....

The Root Cause: Bad Economic Policy

Specifically, nations around the world decided to bail out their big banks instead of taking the necessary steps to stabilize their economies
see this http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/03/ ... izing.html this http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/04/ ... s-not.html and this http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/09/ ... rised.html As such, they all transferred massive debts (from fraudulent and stupid gambling activities) from the balance sheets of the banks to the balance sheets of the country.

The nations have then run their printing presses nonstop in an effort to inflate their way out of their debt crises, even though that effort is doomed to failure from the get-go. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/08/ ... -debt.html

Quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve is obviously causing food prices to skyrocket worldwide http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/01/ ... -food.html and see this http://www.zerohedge.com/article/imf-sa ... s-services this http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2010 ... ve-easing/ and this http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/108687/ ... on-qe2.htm

But the fact is that every country in the world that can print money - i.e. which is not locked into a multi-country currency agreement like the Euro - has been printing massive quantities of money.

By way of example only, the Economic Collapse Blog provides the following charts: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch ... ting-money

The U.S. is printing lots of money.....


Source, The St. Louis Fed http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/se ... ata?cid=29

The Bank of England is printing lots of money.....


Source: The BoE http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/mfsd/iad ... termed.asp

The EU is printing lots of money....


Source: The ECB

Japan is printing lots of money.....


Source: The BoJ http://www.stat-search.boj.or.jp/index_en.html

China is printing lots of money.....


Source: The People’s Bank of China http://www.pbc.gov.cn/publish/html/2010s07.htm

India is printing lots of money.....


Source: Reserve Bank of India http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_ViewBu ... x?Id=11949

Moreover, the austerity measures which governments worldwide are imposing to try to plug their gaping deficits (created by throwing trillions at their banks) are causing people world-wide to push back.

As I warned in February 2009 http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2 ... perts.html and again in December of that year: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/12/ ... crash.html

Numerous high-level officials and experts warn that the economic crisis could lead to unrest world-wide - even in developed countries:

• Today, Moody's warned http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econ ... irals.html that future tax rises and spending cuts could trigger social unrest in a range of countries from the developing to the developed world, that in the coming years, evidence of social unrest and public tension may become just as important signs of whether a country will be able to adapt as traditional economic metrics, that a fiscal crisis remains a possibility for a leading economy, and that 2010 would be a “tumultuous year for sovereign debt issuersâ€