Why Government Stimulus Spending Isn’t Working This Time

For the first time in American history, government stimulus is falling flat on its face. It’s starting to become apparent that the record stimulus being thrown at our economy is not going to pull us out of this recession/depression. Why?

Because according to Dent’s research, for the first time ever, we don’t have favorable demographic winds at our back. During previous recessions, the government could float easy money out into the economy, and eager consumers would grab it and spend it – because they were in the upswings in their spending patterns. But this time, Bernanke & Co are merely pushing on a proverbial string. The Fed can extend credit – but they can’t force the consumer to take it!

Harry Dent’s Outlook on Demographics, Debt, and Deflation — Seeking Alpha

Of the 90 publicly listed Chinese property developers listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, almost two-thirds of them reported negative operating cash flows for the first half of 2010. No wonder the People’s Bank of China asked these companies to estimate their level of write-offs if home prices were to fall by a humungus 60% instead of the prior target of 30%. At t he time my China hands made little of the seemingly worrisome instruction.. I guess everyone wanted to believe that the Chinese equity market would remain the golden goose even as US equity prices faltered.

Chinese Real Estate Bubble Is Bursting – Robert Lenzner – The Bottom Line – Forbes

The currency crisis is merely one symptom of the country’s general aversion to change after the boom-and-bust 1980s

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Now, thanks to the glacial pace of change, Japan’s relevance globally is waning. China’s economy officially surpassed Japan’s in size in August. The moral of this story? “Don’t cry about the strong yen, fix the problem,” says Naomi Fink, strategist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ in Tokyo.

Japan Has More Than Just a Yen Crisis – BusinessWeek

China is heading toward a Japanese-style economic debacle, says columnist John Lee, who warns that the process won’t be as gradual or peaceful

Now that China has officially overtaken Japan as the world’s second-largest economy, there is growing speculation by influential Chinese and U.S. economists, such as Wu Jinglian and John Makin, that China will soon endure its own “lost decade” as it suffers a Japanese-style malaise. … For the Chinese Communist Party and the nation’s people, following in Japan’s footsteps would likely be much more traumatic.

If Only China Were More Like Japan – BusinessWeek

As large as the Pilbara project is, it is just one of many China has funded in a boom that has both enriched and troubled Australia. The Chinese aluminum company Chinalco owns about 9 percent of Boxy’s employer Rio Tinto, which has been transformed by China’s demand for iron ore into the second-largest miner in the world. Rio Tinto, which had a net income of $1.4 billion in 2003, now earns more than $10 billion a year, and 70 percent of those profits are from iron ore. Until last year, China was trying to buy more of the company, a move resisted by Rio, which would have had its largest customer even more involved in decision-making.

The Deal Is Simple. Australia Gets Money, China Gets Australia – BusinessWeek

The shocking announcement by the Russian government of a 12 month extension of its wheat export ban and the outbreak of food riots in Mozambique are stark reminders that the world is just one really bad year away from a horrific world famine. As you read this, the world is already really, really struggling to feed itself. Approximately 1 billion people throughout the world go to bed hungry each night. Somewhere in the world someone starves to death every 3.6 seconds, and 75 percent of those are children under the age of five. And those are the statistics that we have seen while North America has been producing record harvests. So what is going to happen when the United States and Canada have really bad harvests for a year or two as world demand for food continues to skyrocket? That is a very sobering question.

Just One Really Bad Year Away From A Horrific World Famine

Most signs point to a slow and steady recovery, but what if the pessimists are right, again? What if the United States isn’t in the slow-lane to recovery, but rather on the precipice of another decline — a double dip?

To see where this re-recession might begin, my colleague Dan Indiviglio and I imagined five financial earthquakes, each with a single epicenter: housing, consumers, toxic assets, Europe, and the debt. The following five scenarios are listed in order of likelihood.

5-doomsday-scenarios-for-the-us-economy: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance

The terms “recession” and “depression” were once used to suggest that a downturn was not as bad as a “panic” or “crisis.” In fact, for the first years of his presidency, Herbert Hoover chose to refer to the downturn as a “depression” in an effort to convey that what the country was experiencing was just a temporary indentation. Only in 1931 did Hoover begin to speak of a “Great Depression.”

You Say Recession, I Say Depression: The Difference Between Those Words Is The Key To Recovery | The New Republic

In times of crisis people seek strong leaders and simple solutions. But what if their solutions are identical to the mistakes that caused the very crisis? This is the story of the greatest economic crisis of our age, the one that awaits us.

YouTube – Overdose: The Next Financial Crisis

“Hezbollah today now has four times as many rockets as it had during the 2006 Lebanon war. These rockets are longer-range. Every city in Israel is within range right now, including Eilat,” he said.

The Red Sea resort of Eilat is the most southern point in Israel.

He said the rockets also have bigger payloads and are “far more accurate” than those fired four years ago.

AFP: Hezbollah places 15,000 rockets on border with Israel: Oren