"Something Biblical is approaching"That from Zerohedge. And from Matthew Lynn in the Telegraph, 'The next Eurozone crisis has already started'
2019 has started more calmly after a very volatile year-end in the markets. Focus has been on the trade deal between China and the US and the words of the central bankers, most notably those of Jay Powell. However, this is all just a distraction, a side-show. The market volatility was only the first sign of an approaching global economic crisis, as we warned in December 2017.
As the recent PMI figures across the globe show, a global downturn has started and the world is utterly unprepared for it. The global imbalances that have been growing for years cannot lead to anything else than a global crisis . However, there are different paths the crisis could take.
Here, we present three scenarios that the global economy is likely to follow, when the global downturn morphs into something much more sinister.
We’ll start with the most likely scenario: Global Depression.
The numbers coming out of all its main economies, from Germany to France, Italy and Spain, are relentlessly bad. What does that mean? Far from winding up quantitative easing, the European Central Bank will be forced to step in with emergency measures to rescue a failing economy – but it may well prove too little, too late.It's becoming increasingly clear that May's deal is like nothing more than clutching tightly to a man just about to jump off a bridge, whilst the EU is of course keen to pocket Britain's £39bn as rapidly as possible and ensure we go down in the Brussels Götterdämmerung.
It would be a short-sighted and foolish government indeed that would want to lock the nation into a restrictive, destructive and harmful treaty at such a time. Britain is better placed by far to weather the coming storm alone and unencumbered, with our resources in the bank and trading on WTO terms. Those global corporates of the CBI and ERT that May is working so hard to please will be critically injured and many may not survive - so why shackle the people of Britain to their failure?
One thing is certain.The world economy that emerges with shredded sails and fractured spars from the storm will not be the same as today. Now is therefore actually the least favourable time for the world's fifth largest economy to seek to lock itself into trade deals. Germany is effectively a monoculture, the entire nation and economy geared to late 20th century metal bashing. It is at great risk from the downturn.
The fight for a Clean Brexit is a fight to free us to take advantage of the post-crisis world - a world of AI, of managed worldwide migration flows, a world in which Internationalism justly defeats Globalism. With a Clean Brexit, and when the seas are calming after the storm, Britain stands poised to rise from the wind-piled spume around our Isles cleansed and renewed.
For the nation's good, May's treaty must fall and we must leave the EU on clean terms.
47 comments:
entire nation and economy geared to late 20th century metal bashing.
To a degree, yes, but it is an ever increasing lesser degree. We should also not forget that Germany GmbH had an 11 billion euro surplus this last year and a 'zero' budget. Yes those figures will be lightly cooked but still 'blue' inside.
Good Morning,
I would also draw your attention to the China risk, on Zerohedge, Black Swan.. which is even more scary if you add to their analysis that an economic collapse in China will become a political crisis. As we all know, when a totalitarian regime starts to lose control at home, they manufacture national a conflict with somebody else....
Steady as she goes then, the Tory government hasn't emerged from the last world financial crisis yet.
Must find a new word for "austerity" though.
I like the new blog background Raedwald.
Now take the bloody deal!
But any part of the eurozone is just a zone within a zone.
So what's the future of Teeside within the Sterling zone? Or Detroit within the dollar zone?
Whatever, Parliament is supreme, so, barring a GE, it will be whatever it decides, and no deal is not acceptable to it.
We will be permanently shackled to europe because of May’s treachery and our MP’s naked self interest.
Vote after vote in Parliament until we deliver the result that the EU wants.
Then a wait of years, maybe a decade before we are finally allowed to leave.
BRINO not BREXIT is what we will get.
Talk of the U.K.somehow being in a position to weather the coming storm is wishful thinking from a bunker in Austria
We will go down chained to a sinking corpse while May and her cronies paddle away.
Anon 9.31 I may be in Austria but my assets are in the UK; I'm betting that the UK will ride out the storm better than anywhere else in Europe. I could of course be wrong ..
"The euro will be dead and buried by Christmas 2012" - Nigel Farage.
@Jack Ketch: don’t you kid yourself. That German “surplus” is nothing more than vendor financing through the Euro’s Target 2 system. They are in deep shit - they are never going to be paid back the trillion Euros imbalance they have built up. Their mercantilism is going to be their ruin.
You are right about it not just being metal bashing though. They also make basic chemicals very expensively, protected behind the EU tariff wall.
Raedwald @ 09:38
We might well be in a position to ride out the storm , but not in our current servile position engineered
by May , her cronies and the europhiles currently infesting Westminster , the media and the civil service.
There a forces determined that we will NEVER leave in any meaningful way and new legal instruments seem to
be concocted every day. I am waiting for that vile puppet Gina Miller to pop up again soon.
MPs can be bought.
The DUP can be bought.
Phillibustering on a scale not seen before.
Woe to the vanquished.
The Crash has been coming a long long time as political scum sign ever larger cheques without resources and pursue ever stupider and more destructive policies.
The EU is a big part of the scummy mess but it is worldwide. All the big players are increasingly socialist shitheads. US Deep State/Fed , the Chicoms, ESpew--all enemies of freedom and free markets. All riding for a dinosaur like fall of their own making. Now is the time to be a small flexible mammal who can survive.
As for Teesside, are you aware that the largest employer there is the University ?
Don Cox
And all of this, is because these deadbeats, who make nothing, think nothing, add nothing, contribute nothing, take everything... want to control the people that do everything... be they workers, artists, inventors (not scientists), or original thinkers or money men of some kind...
Talk about killing the goose that lays the golden egg.
Avocado tongs?
"so why shackle the people of Britain to their failure?"
...for the same reason as always - the banks.
We were shackled to their failure in 2008 and will be shackled to them again when the EU falls for it won't be the fall of the 'EU' that causes the problems (other than instigating the fall) it will be the way the banks(ters) have MANUFACTURED the collapse.
Clearly the banking system is due for a 'reset' and if we allow the banks to both start that process of collapse and replace it with a new system of their design then nothing changes and we'll be in the same place some time in the future AGAIN and ALWAYS under their control.
We need to break the hold the banks have on everyone and everything.
Government issued currencies, linked to the individual countries GDP and issued 'debt free' and to people in the form of a digital coin (so digital currencies WILL have their place) might disconnect the banks from countries, people and, in particular, the politicians and we won't be subservient to the BANKS ever again.
How come, in all this EU/Brexit/economy calamity are the banks managing to be kept out of the discussion?
The Target2 imbalances are only a problem if you still think in separate independent nation terms. Eurocrats don't. They are building a United States of Europe, aping the USA, whilst denying it (as the Anon EU troll does).
Target2 works as a simple payments system (a woman in Spain pays for her Fiat and the money reaches Italy). It also works as a capital flight enabler (a man in Portugal transfers his Euro cash to a safer bank in Germany). If you regard the EZ as one country, the imbalances are (relatively) irrelevant.
Target2 is not a problem, it is (part of) the solution to the necessity of wealth transfers from the prosperous areas to the poor areas (as happens by government in the USA and the UK) to keep any single currency going. The Euro is not going to fail. Just like it didn't during the last crisis (and as I said it wouldn't).
We cannot rely on others making mistakes, or on mere hope. If we are to win, we must make sure we win by our own efforts. And the only way I know is to eschew your tribalism, holding your effete noses if necessary, and vote UKIP. If you don't you will just get more of the woefully behind the curve LibLabCon, and continued serfdom in the EU.
What ever do you mean by "clean brexit"?
No trade, travel, nor communication of any sort, with the world's richest market of the twenty-seven most cultured, civilised countries?
I trust not. So if you want to trade, visit, use their ports, airspace, airports and roads etc., then that requires an agreement, that is, a negotiated deal.
Then you start all the jumping up-and-down and teeth-grinding, and we're back where we started.
Grow up, and face the simple fact that the UK is very, very much the junior party in these talks.
Anon 13.10 - what utter risible specious cockwobble you do believe. Credulous ain't in it. Can I sell you a bridge?
Clearly you don't read the newspapers - or at least those with sentences longer than eight words. Or follow official news releases.
Outline temporary agreements are already in place that cover just about everything about which you are concerned in the event of a Clean Brexit. Don't worry. Your aircraft will still fly, you can still use your UK driving licence over here and we'll still send you Brie and Chardonnay. The EU have ensured they are still able to access financial services in the City and reciprocal arrangements are in place.
May's treaty even contains many sensible, neutral, efficient solutions to mundane matters to keep people, goods and even money moving as it should. Such measures can easily be cut-and-pasted into a sensible WA by may's successor.
The 175 pages of the backstop just have to go. As do the defence and security measures that compromise UK security, as outlined by a former MI6 Chief the other day.
So don't worry your head about such things. The grown-ups have it all in hand.
Anon 13:10 said: "So if you want to trade, visit, use their ports, airspace, airports and roads etc., then that requires an agreement, that is, a negotiated deal".
No, it doesn't. We must just walk away. We neither want nor need a massive all-encompassing "deal", or even an RTA. We already have a trade deal - it's called the WTO system. Everything else is handled by existing international agreements and treaties to which we will be a party as an independent country. Recognising each others driving licenses does not require giving up our independence, it is done with a simple reciprocal agreement as already in place with other countries.
Are you a complete moron or do you just enjoy throwing a tantrum and wailing "it's all immmmmposssibule"? Grow up, and face the simple fact that the UK is very, very capable of being as independent as New Zealand.
Anon - you're so bl00dy specious it's beyond belief.
Brexit, clean or 'dirty', doesn't mean cutting off anyone or anything from Europe and the trade therein. Do you think businesses across Europe don't WANT to trade? or people don't WANT to travel?
Outside of the EU we are perfectly capable - as hundreds of other countries already can and do - of trading and traveling across and with the EU. Your statements are simply Remoaners BS.
... Radders beat me to it.
OK, just supply one fact.
Will UK trucks be able to drive on EU roads in the event of a no-deal?
If so, how much will it cost them?
Come on, clever dick, just one, tinst-winsy fact?
How much?
As the more adult of the brexiteers and remainers have pointed out many times, the whole thing with the tariffs/WTO isn't really the issue. Put in very simple terms; yes the EU27 will still want to do business with us and buy our shoddy glass walking sticks and cheap tin trays, despite any WTF tariff, and vice versa. However whether or not firms in the EU27 will be allowed to buy goods from a 3rd (World?) Country yUK is another question. Even if the regulations governing glass walking sticks are exactly the same in both the EU and the yUK, the moment we car crash over that cliff top our regulations become 'invalid' in the eyes of the EU.
Anon - you can find full details of the arrangements already in place, and the status of details yet to be announced, in respect of road transport at
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/commercial-road-haulage-in-the-eu-if-theres-no-brexit-deal/commercial-road-haulage-in-the-eu-if-theres-no-brexit-deal
A most touching endorsement Jack...
Gordon - looks like a swizz to me. Those avocado tongs look exactly the same as bog-standard surgical retractors you can buy for £8.99 a pair.
we'll still send you Brie and Chardonnay. The EU have ensured they are still able to access financial services in the City and reciprocal arrangements are in place. -Raed
Yeees but will the yUK still be able to sell 'Cheddar' or 'Stilton' in the EU (I can remember the , according to Brexiteers, 'good old days' when you couldn't get British 'Ice Cream' nor 'beer' in Germany for love nor money, and has anyone told the big players in the City that, I ask in the light of today's announcement?
Jack - Ireland produces 200,000 tonnes of Cheddar a year, 70% goes to the UK to be sold under labels such as 'Southdown Farm Cheddar' or 'Castle City Cheddar' or 'Roman River Cheddar' and most UK people who buy it think they're eating English Cheddar. Ireland can easily switch markets to the rest of the EU - and indeed, as a result of Brexit, some Irish cheese factories are setting up lines to make not only Stilton but Mozarella and Parmesan clones.
But yes, there are issues around genuine geographical name controlled foods and drinks - but can you seriously imagine Herr Juncker not granting the Scotch Whisky distillers a permit?
Right-writes
One could also add that the last Eurozone crisis hasn't finished either.
Austerity. It used to mean not spending money you could afford to. Suddenly it started meaning not spending far more than you can afford. Odd. All for it. Problem was that the government hit all the wrong targets, and as usual, buggered the poor. Austerity as we know did not apply to the top end top middle end of public services, where salaries and pensions continued to rocket and performance continued to plummet.
Regardless, we need to spend much less. Then maybe wed all have some money in our pockets to kickstart a moribund economy?
bring back the bradbury pound that will take the bank shitsers out of the loop me thinks
issues around genuine geographical name controlled foods and drinks-Raed
Actually that wasn't the issue (a fairly minor one I think) I meant when I said that back in the pre-EU daze it was verboten to sell British 'Ice Cream' and 'beer' in Germany. According to the then very lax 'regulations' 'Walls Vanilla' wasn't 'ice cream' because it wasn't iced cream. And British beer of the 70s was, by and large, about as far from the Rheinheitsgebot as one could get.
So no matter that Irish Cheddar is flogged throughout the EU (as bath soap, one assumes) and that atm English Cheddar is produced in accordance all the EU guidelines and regulations governing cleaning products, in the event of the Morris Allegro of our Economy crashing over the cliffs, it becomes a product of a 3rd country.
[and before anyone picks me up on it, yes I am aware I am majorly over simplifying things -for the simple reason it is all above my mental pay-grade]
Fair points. And I agree with the EU that an emulsion made of lard, whey and sugar should no more be called 'Ice Cream' than (the modern equivalent) a mix of industrial ethanol, sugar, water and apple flavouring should be allowed to be called 'Cider'
But then I hate factory food.
Thanks for the link.
That describes not the problem-free position which would ensue, but the confusion, uncertainty, and the mish-mash of different permits which might be required, for each separate country.
It also points out that countries would be free to choose whether to recognise UK documents or not, and that only a limited number of the key ones would be available. It does not say how many.
Thats after they've had the vehicles taken apart by border security just getting into the EU.
Anon - you're not actually in the road haulage industry, are you?
Perhaps you're a concerned Barista or suchlike. Fair dos.
But this is a current affairs blog, and we don't really specialise in the road haulage industry. Though several commentators have an accumulation of relevant experience that will between them total a century or more, and I'm sure they would be happy to advise, I can't help feeling you'd be better off directing your questions to a forum that specialised more in, erm, road haulage.
Supply chains.
Have we seen any evidence of companies in EU countries making concerted efforts to refocus their supply chains, eradicating UK made goods, parts, components, subsystems etc and finding alternates? (Spikes in buying from UK suppliers, an increase in activity at test and certification facilities for certification of resdesigned products etc etc).
And supply chains are not just two way, they can often be multi way and extend beyond the UK or EU. A British part goes into an EU made subsystem which comes back to the UK to go in a complete system. A British made part goes into an EU made product for sale to South America, India, Australia or wherever.
This is the reality of much international trade these days. Is this all going to stop on March 30th? A barrier is going to appear which will make the border between North and South Korea seem like the one between East and West Sussex? If they're going to stop cheese and shoddy tin trays, how can they not disrupt the rest? Or are they going to selectively target certain sectors and products (which would be interesting).
You still can’t get foreign beers in Germany.
89 - Lorries used in government’s rehearsal this week for increased traffic jams on road to Dover in event of no-deal Brexit
16,000 - Lorries which actually go through Dover on busiest days
14 - Minutes behind schedule that rehearsal lorries set off, despite not needing customs checks as will be the case in reality
£122bn - Total value of goods passing through Dover in 2017
Good luck with that.
Who are the CBI ?
Unlike the ERT they do not publish a list of members (I rang them to check).
Do they have UK factories or offices ?
Are they British owned ?
Do they pay any UK taxes ?
Apart from the EU (which we do know about) from where/whom does the CBI receive its funding ?
Anonymous said...
"You still can’t get foreign beers in Germany"
"£122bn - Total value of goods passing through Dover in 2017" - Thats's a lot of tin trays!
Fuck me, I know Juncker likes a drink but I didn't know our whole economy depended on it!
You still can’t get foreign beers in Germany.-Anon
Possibly, although with notable exception of Guinness, would anyone in Germany want to drink English beer?!?! That'd be a bit 'coke to Columbia'. When even the smallest , dodgiest Gastwirtschaft enslaved to the local brewery (and there wiil be a local brewery) serves something better than 'concocted' by Big Brewski here? From what I can recall, Germans who want to drink foreign beer go for original Pilsner types or Lambic from Belgium....although I am sure these days there is a market for breakfast-cereal-in-a-bowl tasting 'American' 'beers'.
Ps. I am aware that Guinness is NOT an English beer....or even a 'beer' at all ( a porter-stout if I recall?)
Beer is not just a drink here. It's a currency - I'm now used to negotiating wage costs for small jobs in beer + money. It's a statement of identity - my Munich chums make us drive 30km out of the way here to a warehouse that stocks Bavarian crates. They love the scenery down here, but only when they have a familiar beer in their hands. And if it's not flaschenbier it's not worth drinking. That goes for locals, too. They can't understand me buying slabs of dosenbier - and not just cans, but Viennese brands. They can talk about it endlessly, and are like footy fans in their loyalty to their home brands.
I've never seen one in the UK, but all supermarkets here have bottle return machines - either individual bottles in the chute, or complete crates of empties into the scanner hatch. All automatic. You get a cash voucher.
Children learn early how to remove crown caps using anything from folded paper to plastic lighters. Never once have I seen anyone use a bottle opener. Smacking the cap with the palm against a projection is laughed at. I normally hand my bottles over to be opened by some juvenile using some small piece of litter.
It's really not just a drink here. It's existential.
Children learn early how to remove crown caps using anything from folded paper to plastic lighters
One of my few failures to integrate myself fully into German society that was! I never did get the hang of using the feuerzeug to open bier bottles. The Bestes Teetotal Rabid Christian Girl In The Welt could do it with ease of course. It was embarrassing. I got the hang of opening tetrapacks quick enough and rolling cigarettes that looked like cigarettes and not matchsticks but crown caps....nope.
Anon - I recall reading that the Dover crossing constitutes the 'massive' total of 6% of UK imports/exports.
The vast majority of trade comes through our container ports who have already stated that there will be no holdups.
Dover is the media's whore when it comes to promoting the scaremongering. Of course, those that have to USE it will be concerned but as for it bringing the country to a standstill? Not a chance.
Never forget that the scaremongering is and always will be one-sided. We never hear of any foreign country that exports to us whinging, whining and complaining that the tunnel and/or road transport will be 'insurmountable'.
Stop listening to the BBC and reading the MSM.
Unhooking ourselves from the high tariff EU bubble means we can exploit the regions of the world that are denied the EU market.
The tariffs in place across the whole EU to help certain protected industries can be cast aside and we can choose to protect our own industries but browse the global smorgasbord of products.
protect our own industries -Mark Skint
That kinda negates the whole 'free trade' thing. Precisely those industries we might wish to protect, will be the very ones our prospective new partners will want to undercut.
global smorgasbord of products. Like we don't atm? Last time i checked we already trade with the
non EU world far more than with the EU.
Maybe I needed to state "On our own terms"
Tariffs are controlled by the EU, after Brexit we set our own tariffs in our own interest.
It doesn't negate the whole free trade thing. We can still make agreements but we can choose not to decimate our own industry as a result of that trade agreement. Where someone negotiating on our behalf may not have our best interests in mind.
We currently sample the global smorgasbord through the filter imposed or negotiated by the EU. We can select the goods or services we wish to sample ourselves.
The whole thing revolves around the concept of control. The government regains control of tariffs and trade agreements and we the people regain the control of the people representing us in trade terms because we regain the ability to vote for them or not.
It doesn't negate the whole free trade thing. We can still make agreements but we can choose not to decimate our own industry as a result of that trade agreement.-Mark
Yes, yes it does I'm afraid. Don't get me wrong, I have been a fan of Free Trade since I first encountered the idea in O Level Economic & Social History as a kid and if I thought the yUK.gove was really intending to have FT with the rest of the world I'd be a lot happier about BrexSShite.
Simply put, and unlike so many here I'm not an expert in such matters, there are two ways of not 'decimating our own industry'; one is by tariffs (or 'legal protections') which , of course, negates the idea of FT, or 2nd by subsidy and any FTA negotiation between states tends to be more a case of 'subsidy poker'....that along with the regulatory aspects (ie should chicken taste of bleach) is the reason why FTAs tend to take years to negotiate despite the idea at their heart being so simple.
Mark the Skint Sailor said: "It doesn't negate the whole free trade thing. We can still make agreements but we can choose not to decimate our own industry as a result of that trade agreement".
Jack Ketch said: "Yes, yes it does I'm afraid".
No, no it doesn't I'm afraid. On a spectrum from black to white only a very odd pedant would maintain that off white is really black. Mark is correct.
There isn't full free trade even within the EU - single-market/customs-union notwithstanding - and there isn't a free market in international trade either. Anyone who thinks that the EU, Germany, China and the USA don't use trade as a weapon is naive.
It therefore makes sense for the UK to recognise that reality, and protect its strategic interests whilst aiming for as much free trade as possible. It is precisely the independence gained by leaving the EU treaties that would enable the UK to better protect its own interests, including lowering tariffs where advantageous. The EU looks after the EU, not the UK. And Remains are too gullible to see it.
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