Is Hanukkah Ripe for the Messiah? New Bible Codes Suggest World Entering Auspicious Time

“Every commandment that I command you this day you shall keep to do, that you may live and multiply, and come and possess the land that the Lord swore to your forefathers.” (Deuteronomy 8:1)

Hanukkah menorah (Photo: Scott / Wiki Commons)

Two Bible Code videos, both released on October 26, 2015, suggest that certain times are particularly auspicious for the arrival of the Messiah. Two of those potential times are the upcoming Jewish holidays of Hanukkah, which begins at sunset on December 6, and Purim, which takes place in March 2016. 

A critically important message of many of the Bible Code videos, including this one from Sukkot, is that the timing of the Messiah’s arrival is dependent on the Jews fulfilling the word of God, by keeping God’s Biblical commandments. 

In other words, whenever Bible Codes refer to a possible date for the coming of the Messiah, it isn’t a prophecy. Its occurrence is very much dependant on repentance and on the Jewish people strengthening their belief in God.

The call for repentance in preparation for the Messiah is being heard from an increasing number of sources in the Jewish world. For example, repentance is the central theme of every Heavenly message received by Rabbi Amram Vaknin, including the most recent one reported by Breaking Israel News. Another voice calling for repentance is Rabbi Alon Anava, a former Jewish atheist who came close to God and became an Orthodox rabbi after he had a near death experience. 

The urgency of messages calling for repentance is based partially on the Jewish belief that once the Messiah arrives, the option to repent will cease to exist. Thus, as the Messiah’s appearance draws closer, the window of opportunity to repent begins to close.

Repentance and Hanukkah

In the longer of the two videos that suggest auspicious dates for the Messiah to arrive, Rabbi Mattityahu Glazerson, an international expert on Bible Codes, reviews a table that includes Bible Codes embedded in the Books of Numbers and Deuteronomy. Glazerson points out where the words Moshiach (Messiah) and Hanukkah appear together. Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, occurs in the winter, close to the winter solstice, when the days are short. 

WATCH: Repentance During Hanukkah Can Bring the Messiah

When speaking about the possibility of Messiah at Hanukkah time, Glazerson emphasizes the importance of the code b’teshuva (with repentance) which is spelled out by counting every eighth letter. Like Vaknin and Anava, Glazerson dwells on the necessity for repentance extensively in this video, quoting Maimonides, the eminent 12th century Jewish philosopher and Torah scholar.

“And Israel will only be redeemed [from their current exile] through repentance.” – Maimonides, Laws of Understanding 

In the video, Glazerson points out the Hebrew letters that stand for 5776, which is the current year in the Hebrew calendar, and the words “Ben Yishai” (Son of Jesse) and David, both clear references to “Moshiach ben David” (Messiah, son of David).

At the end of the first video, Glazerson reiterates the need for the Jewish people to keep all the commandments of the Torah. Speaking to Breaking Israel News, Glazerson explained, “These [dates that are found in Bible Codes] are dates destined for Mashiach (Messiah), but if the condition of repentance is missing, it [his arrival] will be delayed to another appropriate date.”

The Purim Messiah?

The second, shorter Bible Codes video mentions the Jewish holiday of Purim as another possible date for the arrival of the Messiah. Purim celebrates the salvation of the Jewish people from Haman, who planned to kill all the Jews in ancient Persia, as told in the Biblical Book of Esther

Although, as mentioned, Glazerson routinely emphasizes the importance of repentance as a condition of the Messiah coming on any date mentioned in Bible Codes, the Purim Messiah table is different. Intriguingly, he remarked to Breaking Israel News that, in the Purim table, there is no clear mention of repentance. “Maybe this time, things will bring [us] to a situation that Mashiach will come [regardless of our behavior],” he said. 

WATCH: The Purim Messiah?

The Purim video opens with a quote from Rabbi Shimon Dahan, an Israeli expert in Judaism’s mystical tradition. Glazerson quotes Dahan as saying, “Something great and joyful is going to happen on Purim.”

The most significant finding in this second table are the words HaMoshiach Purim (the Messiah  Purim) appearing in a column together. This Bible Code, linking the Messiah and Purim, was found by counting every 5776th letter. This is meaningful because 5776 is the current year in the Hebrew calendar. 

To strengthen the connection, the letters that spell out 5776 in Hebrew also appear in this table near the HaMoshiach Purim column. The Hebrew word that means “this is the time” also appears, to the right of the HaMoshiach Purim column.

As described In the Book of Esther, Queen Esther led the Jewish people in repentance. It was this repentance that saved them from the genocidal plotting of Haman. The Hebrew word for salvation also appears in this table in two different grammatical forms, again connecting repentance to salvation.

Finally, Glazerson points out the similar sound of Haman, the villain of the Book of Esther who is ultimately defeated by the Jews and Khamenei, the current Ayatollah of Iran, who has publicly threatened Israel’s future.

Credit to breakingisraelnews.com
Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/55437/is-hanukkah-ripe-for-the-messiah-new-bible-codes-suggest-world-entering-auspicious-time-jewish-world/#iXEhHJ7kjXuUKsmG.99

War & Economic Calamity Coming, 2016 Predictions-Gerald Celente

Top trends forecaster Gerald Celente says 2016 is going to be very rough. What’s coming right at us? Celente says, “Global recession, and it’s already happening, all they have to do is open their eyes and open their ears. Iron ore, copper, aluminum, nickel, zinc, one after another from wheat to dairy products to corn. When you look at the Bloomberg Index, it’s down to 1999 levels on average. What is that telling us? There is too much product and not enough demand. It’s the same thing with oil. There’s too much production and not enough demand. . . . What we are looking at is a global slowdown because commodities are the canary in the mine shaft.”

Celente says all this is signaling another financial bust bigger than 2008. Celente explains, “So, what you have is a bubble, a debt bubble that has grown to $220 trillion worldwide since this fake quantitative easing and negative interest rate schemes that have gone on with central bank after central bank. . . You can’t make this up. Interest rates and negative yields have never happened before in the world. This is brand new. They are over their heads and out of their league. They don’t know what they are doing. They are making panic decisions trying to keep the Ponzi alive.”

On global war, Celente says, “Unfortunately, when all else fails, they take us to war. Look, go back to 1929 and the market crash. You had market crashes, Great Depression, currency wars, trade wars, world war.  Voila, here we are again. Panic of ‘08, Great Recession, currency wars world war. . . . When the market collapses, the war talk will heat up.”

Gold and silver are running counter to other commodities. Why? Celente says, “Demand is up for gold and silver. To me, it is the ultimate safe haven. I’ve been saying since 2012 and 2013 that the bottom for gold is about $1,050 an ounce. I gave that number out because that’s about what it costs to pull it out of the ground. . . . Gold is about planning for the worst.”

So, is the spike in gold and silver demand a precursor to the next crash, which Celente is predicting to be coming soon? Celente says, “I totally believe so. . . . It’s definitely worse now. Look at the bubble they created. . . . If there is a terror strike, they will use this as the excuse to rob us to try to mitigate the disaster that they have caused. I believe they will declare a bank holiday and devalue the currency. That’s the way they are going to get us out of this.”

Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Gerald Celente, Publisher of the Trends Journal.

Credit to usawatchdog.com

Peter Schiff on the Collapse of the U.S.A.

Add 2 More Attacks To The List As The Year End Explosion Of Islamic Terror Continues

Doesn’t it seem like there is another Islamic terror attack somewhere in the world almost every day now?  Today, there was a throat slashing at a subway station in London, and three female suicide bombers carried out a devastating attack in Chad that killed at least 27 and injured at least 90.  Inspired by the success of ISIS, radical Islamists all over the planet are rising up and striking vulnerable targets.  According to Wikipedia, there have been dozens of terror attacks worldwide so far this year, and the recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino were some of the biggest news stories of 2015.  Unfortunately, I believe that this is just the beginning.  I am fully convinced that the seeds of terror that have been planted up until now will produce an increasingly bitter harvest as we head into 2016 and beyond.

The throat slashing that just happened in London is another in a series of seemingly random attacks that is creating fear all over Europe right now.  Reportedly, the attacker yelled “this is for Syria” as he struck at his victim…

A man was stabbed in the ticket hall at Leytonstone station this evening by another man who witnesses say shouted “This is for Syria” as he slashed his throat.

Another three are thought to have been injured.

The Met Police said its counter-terrorism command unit is now investigating the incident.

Police said they used a taser on the suspect as he threatened others with a knife, before they managed to arrest him.

An alternate account of this attack in the Guardian sounds even more gruesome…

One person, who claims to have witnessed the attack, took to social media to reveal details of the horror. Laurynas Godvisa said: “So as I was going to Leytonstone station was dressed to go to Christmas dinner with people from work.

“As I walked down I just saw a lot of people running but I ignored it and kept walking to get my train, but suddenly what I saw I couldn’t believe my eyes and what I saw was I guy with a knife and a dead guy on the floor.

“I was so scared I ran for my life. After good 10-15 police came and got the guy and arrested him.

“And as he was coming out this is what he said: ‘This is what happens when you **** with mother Syria all of your blood will be spilled.’”

On a daily basis, we all rely on the fact that the people we encounter in public are not going to try to kill us.

But what happens when attacks start happening regularly at soft targets such as schools, churches, subway stations, shopping malls and sporting events?

It isn’t going to take many mass casualty events in the western world before people really start freaking out.

In other areas of the world, we already see these sorts of mass casualty events on a regular basis.  And I am not just talking about the Middle East.  For example, just check out what happened earlier today in Africa…

A deadly attack took the lives of at least 27 people in Africa. A local market on the island of Koulfoua, in Chad was struck, according to the BBC and AP, injuring at least 90.

A Chad police spokesman said three female suicide bombers carried out Saturday’s attack.

The Lake Chad region straddles the borders of Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria.

In Nigeria, Islamic terror has become a part of daily life.  It wasn’t always that way, but now Boko Haram is creating havoc all over the place.

Given enough time, the same thing would happen in the United States.  We have all seen what just happened in San Bernardino, and more radical Islamists are coming into this country all the time.  Sadly, the truth is that Sayed Farook and Tashfeen Malik are just the very small tip of a very large iceberg.

The mainstream media is keeping very quiet about the fact that Sayed Farook had been arguing with a 52-year-old pro-Israel Messianic Jewish Christian co-worker named Nicholas Thalasinos and had openly threatened to kill him.  A radical Muslim taking revenge on a conservative Christian because of what he believed doesn’t fit any of the “narratives” that the mainstream media is trying to push, and so that part of the story is being almost entirely ignored.  In fact, I just read an extremely long article on the attack by the Washington Post, and there was not a single mention of Thalasinos in the entire article.

But the mainstream media is telling us that Farook and Malik had both been radicalized, and it is being reported that Malik even went so far as to pledge her allegiance to ISIS.  The following comes from the Daily Mail…

New details have emerged about the radicalization of a Pakistani woman who along with her American husband killed 14 people in San Bernardino California and pledged allegiance to ISIS.

Tashfeen Malik who moved to the US last year when she married Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, had spent most of her life in Saudi Arabia and relatives say she began to be radicalized in college.

Relatives of Malik in Pakistan, estranged from their wealthy family members who live in Saudi Arabia, said she used to wear Western-style clothing but later switched to more traditional garments such as a burka, which covers the the entire body.

These kinds of radicals are moving to America on a constant basis now, and Barack Obama wants to accelerate this process.

During recent television appearances and on a DVD that I made earlier this year, I went on the record with my prediction that a horrible wave of Islamic terrorism was coming to America.

Unfortunately, what we have seen so far is just a preview.

Eventually we are going to see attacks on soft targets that are going to kill hundreds or even thousands.

And as the terrorists see the panic and fear that they are able to create, it will just embolden them to try to launch even bigger and more destructive attacks.

If you don’t think that this can happen in America, just look at what is already happening around the rest of the world.  From 2013 to 2014, the number of people around the world killed by terrorism increased by 80 percent, and this year the plague of Islamic terror has gotten even worse.

Our world is becoming increasingly unstable, and our society is extremely vulnerable to various forms of terrorism.  And as we have seen with Sayed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, anyone that is willing to commit extremely destructive acts of violent terrorism will suddenly become world famous.  Terrorists desperately want to focus attention on themselves, and they love to create fear, and in this day and age it is very easy to do both.

I wish that I could be more optimistic, but as we head into 2016 I have a feeling that this outbreak of Islamic terror is only going to get worse.  This is going to fundamentally change all of our lives, and we need to be ready to deal with that reality.

Credit to ECONOMIC collapse

Iraq May Seek "Direct Military Intervention From Russia" To Expel Turkish Troops

Turkey just can’t seem to help itself when it comes to escalations in the Mid-East. 

First, Erdogan intentionally reignited the conflict between Ankara and the PKK in an effort to scare the public into nullifying a democratic election outcome. Then, the Turks shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border. Finally, in what very well might be an effort to protect Islamic State oil smuggling routes, Erdogan sent 150 troops and two dozen tanks to Bashiqa, just northeast of Mosul in a move that has infuriated Baghdad. 

We discussed the troop deployment at length on Saturday in “Did Turkey Just Invade Iraq To Protect Erdogan's ISIS Oil Smuggling Routes?,” and you’re encouraged to review the analysis in its entirety, but here was our conclusion:

The backlash underscores the fact that Iraq does not want help from NATO when it comes to fighting ISIS. Iraqis generally believe the US is in bed with Islamic State and you can bet that Russia and Iran will be keen on advising Baghdad to be exceptionally assertive when it comes to expelling a highly suspicious Turkish presence near Najma. 

You’re reminded that Iran wields considerable influence both politically and militarily in Iraq. The Iraqi military has proven largely ineffective at defending the country against the ISIS advance and so, the Quds-backed Shiite militias including the Badr Organisation, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kataib Hezbollah have stepped in to fill the void (see our full account here).

Of course that means that the Ayatollah looms large in Iraq and when it comes to loyalty, both the militias and a number of Iraqi lawmakers pledge allegiance to Tehran and more specifically to Qassem Soleimani. The point is this: Iran is not going to stand idly by and let America and Turkey put more boots on the ground in Iraq which is why just hours after Ash Carter announced that The Pentagon is set to send in more US SpecOps, Kataib Hezbollah threatened to hunt them down and kill them. Not coincidentally, PM Haider al-Abadi rejected a larger US troop presence just moments later. 

Now, Abadi has given Turkey 48 hours to get its troops out of Iraq or else.

Or else what?, you might ask. Well, or else Baghdad will appeal to the UN Security Council where Russia and China would likely support the Iraqi cause. 

But that’s a little too meek of a solution for some Iraqi politicians including Hakim al-Zamili, the head of Iraq's parliamentary committee on security and defense who said on Sunday that Iraq “may soon ask Russia for direct military intervention in response to the Turkish invasion and the violation of Iraqi sovereignty.” 

"Iraq has the ability to repel these forces and drive them out of Iraqi territory. We could also request Russia to intervene militarily in Iraq in response to Turkish violation of Iraqi sovereignty," he told Al-Araby al-Jadeed. 

Well guess what? Hakim al-Zamili is a somebody.

He was arrested in 2007 by Iraqi and American troops while holding a high ranking office in the Health Ministry. Zamili was charged with sending millions of dollars to Shiite militants who subsequently kidnapped and killed Iraqi civilians. Sunni civilians. More specifically, the US suspected Zamili “of using his position to run a rogue unit of the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia that claims loyalty to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr,” The New York Times reported at the time, adding that he was accused of “flooding the Health Ministry's payroll with militants, embezzling American money meant to pay for Iraq's overworked medical system and using Health Ministry 'facilities and services for sectarian kidnapping and murder.''

Here’s an interesting account from NPR ca. 2010, after parliamentary elections: 

At Friday prayers yesterday in Baghdad's Sadr City slum, one man in a gray suit seemed to attract as much attention as the preachers speaking over the P.A.

After a sermon that praised both armed and political resistance to the occupation of Iraq, many from the crowd of thousands rushed up to the front to congratulate Hakim al-Zamili, who appears to have won a resounding mandate as a member of parliament from Baghdad.

Though a celebrity here in Sadr City, many Iraqis call him a war criminal. Zamili was the deputy health minister during the ramp-up to Iraq's civil war, and he's accused of turning the ministry's guards into a Shia death squad, kidnapping and killing hundreds of Sunnis. Another ministry official who denounced Zamili disappeared and is presumed dead.

After being arrested and held over a year by the Americans, an Iraqi court acquitted Zamili after a brief trial.

“If I were really involved in those crimes, the courts would have convicted me,” Zamili said. 

Right.

Anyway, the point is that as we’ve been saying for months, Shiite politicians along with Iran-backed militias now control Iraq, which has essentially been reduced to a colony of Tehran.

There will be no unilateral decisions on the part of the US or Turkey to place troops in the country without pushback from Baghdad and everyone involved knows that when Baghdad pushes back, it means Iran disapproves.

As Zamili’s warning makes clear, Iraq (and thereby Iran) won’t be shy about calling in the big guns from Moscow when they feel the situation demands it - and the militas won't be shy about targeting the "invaders." 

"Turkish interests in Iraq will now be a legitimate target because of Turkey's assault on Iraqi territories," Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, one of the Shia militias of the Popular Mobilisation said in a statement. Similarly, Harakat al-Nujaba called Turkey "a terrorist state." You're reminded that these groups have a reputation for fearing no one other that Khamenei himself. Not the US, not Turkey, not ISIS, no one:

We close with what Zamili said after the establishment of the Baghdad-based joint intelligence cell comprising officials from Iran, Russia, Syria, and Iraq: 

“The idea is to formalize the relationship with Iran, Russia and Syria. We wanted a full-blown military alliance.”

*  *  *

Bonus color from ISW:

The recent deployment into northern Iraq differs from past deployments in three ways. First, Turkey does not appear to have undertaken the action in order to contain the PKK directly, as there is no significant PKK activity in or around Bashiqa. The base is also located too far from other priority territory for the PKK, including Sinjar west of Mosul, to be used as an effective staging point for future operations against the PKK. Second, the Turkish battalion, deployed to an area within the Disputed Internal Boundaries (DIBs) – areas that have substantial Kurdish populations but remain outside of Iraqi Kurdistan. Turkey likely intends to support Barzani and the KDP in securing control over the DIBs while also positioning its own forces to better influence what forces participate in the future operation to recapture Mosul, formerly an ethnically diverse city including Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen. Third, the Turkish deployment came only four days after Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced that additional U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) would deploy to Iraq to conduct raids and intelligence-gathering in Iraq and Syria, an announcement that generated denunciations from the Shi’a political parties and threats of no-confidence votes against the Prime Minister, forcing PM Abadi to reject publicly the presence of foreign ground troops in Iraq. The Turkish troops thus deployed at a particularly sensitive time. 

Turkey also maintains close connections with key players in northern Iraq. Turkey has cooperated with Kurdistan Regional President Masoud Barzani since 2013, particularly over crude oil exports through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline. Barzani and Turkey share a mutual distrust of the PKK, and the KDP currently competes with the PKK for control over Sinjar district. Turkey also possesses close relations with former Ninewa Province governor Atheel al-Nujaifi, who maintains a camp of former local police and Arab fighters in Bashiqa called the “National Mobilization.” Turkish support was essential for Atheel al-Nujaifi’s elevation to the Ninewa governorship in 2009. Finally, Turkey has close relations Osama al-Nujaifi, Atheel’s brother and the leader of the Sunni Etihad bloc in the Council of Representatives (CoR). Turkey will likely leverage these connections in order to secure greater control over what armed and political actors participate in operations to recapture Mosul. In particular, Turkey will likely support the Nujaifis over Sunni Arabs with whom Turkey has not cultivated relations.

Turkey’s deployment of troops sparked strong rejection from the full spectrum of Iraqi political actors. Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi and Iraqi President Fuad Masoum strongly condemned the deployment as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and demanded that Turkey conduct an immediate withdrawal. All major Shi’a parties denounced the deployment as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, with a leading Sadrist official calling for Iraqi airstrikes on the Turkish force if it did not depart the country. Another pro-Maliki CoR member suggesting that “a Russian force” could intervene to expel the Turkish battalion.

The U.S. will not likely press Turkey on the issue, as anonymous U.S. defense sources merely indicated that the U.S. was "aware" of Turkey’s intentions. Iranian proxy militias, however, could challenge Turkey elsewhere in the country. Iran likely ordered Iranian proxy militias to kidnap 18 Turkish construction workers on September 2 in order to pressure Turkey into ordering Turkish-backed rebels to cooperate with a ceasefire around the besieged Shi’a majority towns of Fu’ah and Kifriya in northern Syria. The kidnappings provided sufficient leverage against Turkey and the kidnapped workers were released after Syrian rebels enacted a local ceasefire. Iran could pursue similar actions against Turkish assets in Baghdad or in southern Iraq.

This situation may escalate further if Iran views the deployment as threatening its vital strategic objectives in Iraq or Syria. Iran rejects any foreign forces other than their own on Iraqi soil and backs the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Barzani’s rival in Iraqi Kurdish politics trying to contest his control over the Kurdistan regional presidency. Iranian proxies also recently sparred violently with the Peshmerga in Tuz Khurmato in eastern Salah al-Din proxies on November 12.

Shi’a parties will use the episode to pressure PM Abadi to strongly reject foreign intervention, particularly if reports that Turkey and Barzani signed an agreement to establish a permanent Turkish base in Bashiqa are correct. These calls could complicate U.S. plans to additional Special Operations Forces (SOF) to Iraq to as a “specialized expeditionary targeting force” that will conduct raids and intelligence-gathering in Iraq and Syria.

Credit to Zero Hedge

Armageddon looms over the world

Alarm Bells Go Off As 11 Critical Indicators Scream The Global Economic Crisis Is Getting Deeper

Economic activity is slowing down all over the planet, and a whole host of signs are indicating that we are essentially exactly where we were just prior to the great stock market crash of 2008.  Yesterday, I explained that the economies of Japan, Brazil, Canada and Russia are all in recession.  Today, I am mainly going to focus on the United States.  We are seeing so many things happen right now that we have not seen since 2008 and 2009.  In so many ways, it is almost as if we are watching an eerie replay of what happened the last time around, and yet most of the “experts” still appear to be oblivious to what is going on.  If you were to make up a checklist of all of the things that you would expect to see just before a major stock market crash, virtually all of them are happening right now.  The following are 11 critical indicators that are absolutely screaming that the global economic crisis is getting deeper…

#1 On Tuesday, the price of oil closed below 40 dollars a barrel.  Back in 2008, the price of oil crashed below 40 dollars a barrel just before the stock market collapsed, and now it has happened again.

#2 The price of copper has plunged all the way down to $2.04.  The last time it was this low was just before the stock market crash of 2008.

#3 The Business Roundtable’s forecast for business investment in 2016 has dropped to the lowest level that we have seen since the last recession.

#4 Corporate debt defaults have risen to the highest level that we have seen since the last recession.  This is a huge problem because corporate debt in the U.S. has approximately doubled since just before the last financial crisis.

#5 The Bloomberg U.S. economic surprise index is more negative right nowthan it was at any point during the last recession.

#6 Credit card data that was just released shows that holiday sales have gone negative for the first time since the last recession.

#7 As I mentioned yesterday, U.S. manufacturing is contracting at the fastest pace that we have seen since the last recession.

#8 The velocity of money in the United States has dropped to the lowest level ever recorded.  Not even during the depths of the last recession was it ever this low.

#9 In 2008, commodity prices crashed just before the stock market did, and late last month the Bloomberg Commodity Index hit a 16 year low.

#10 In the past, stocks have tended to crash about 12-18 months after a peak in corporate profit margins.  At this point, we are 15 months after the most recent peak.

#11 If you look back at 2008, you will see that junk bonds crashed horribly.  Why this is important is because junk bonds started crashing before stocks did, and right now they have dropped to the lowest point that they have been since the last financial crisis.

If just one or two of these indicators were flashing red, that would be bad enough.

The fact that all of them seem to be saying the exact same thing tells us that big trouble is ahead.

And I am not the only one saying this.  Just today, a Reuters article discussed the fact that Citigroup analysts are projecting that there is a 65 percent chancethat the U.S. economy will plunge into recession in 2016…

The outlook for the global economy next year is darkening, with a U.S. recession and China becoming the first major emerging market to slash interest rates to zero both potential scenarios, according to Citi.

As the U.S. economy enters its seventh year of expansion following the 2008-09 crisis, the probability of recession will reach 65 percent, Citi’s rates strategists wrote in their 2016 outlook published late on Tuesday. A rapid flattening of the bond yield curve towards inversion would be an key warning sign.

Personally, I am convinced that we are already in a recession.  There is a lag in the official numbers, so often we don’t know that we are officially in one until it is well underway.  For example, we now know that a recession started in early 2008, but in the summer of 2008 Ben Bernanke and our top politicians were still insisting that there was not going to be a recession.  They were denying what was actually happening right in front of their eyes, and the same thing is happening now.

And of course if the government was actually using honest numbers, we would all be talking about the recession that never seems to end.  According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, honest numbers would show that the U.S. economy has continually been in recession since 2005.

But just like in 2008, the “experts” at the Federal Reserve are assuring all of us that everything is going to be just fine.  In fact, Janet Yellen is convinced that things are so rosy that she seems quite confident that the Fed will raise interest rates in December…

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen signaled Wednesday that the Fed is all but certain to raise interest rates this month for the first time in nearly a decade, saying that gains in the economy and labor market have met the central bank’s goals.

Her comments at the Economic Club of Washington amount to the strongest indication the Fed has provided so far that it will take action at a December 15-16 meeting.

This is the exact same kind of mistake that the Federal Reserve made back in the late 1930s.  They thought that the U.S. economy was finally recovering, and so interest rates were raised.  That turned out to be a tragic mistake.

But this time around, any mistake that the Fed makes will have global consequences.  The rising U.S. dollar is already crippling emerging markets all around the globe, and an interest rate hike will just push the U.S. dollar even higher.  For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “The U.S. Dollar Has Already Caused A Global Recession And Now The Fed Is Going To Make It Worse“.

Many people are waiting for “the big crash”, but the truth is that almost everything has crashed already.

Oil has crashed.

Commodities have crashed.

Gold and silver have crashed.

Junk bonds have crashed.

Chinese stocks have crashed.

Dozens of other stock markets around the world have already crashed.

But the “big event” that many are waiting for is the crash of U.S. stocks.  And just like in 2008, it is inevitable that a U.S. stock crash will follow all of the other crashes that I just mentioned.

Sometimes I get criticized for issuing these kinds of alarms.  But just think of how many people could have been helped if they would have known that the financial crisis of 2008 was going to happen ahead of time.

The exact same patterns that we experienced back then are playing out once again right in front of our eyes, and the more people that we can warn in advance the better.


Credit to Economic Collapse