Plunging Manufacturing Numbers Mean That It Is Time To Hit The Panic Button For The Global Economy

We haven’t seen numbers like these since the last global recession.  I recently wrote about how global trade is imploding all over the planet, and the same thing is true when it comes to manufacturing.  We just learned that manufacturing in China has now been contracting for seven months in a row, and as you will see below, U.S. manufacturing is facing “its toughest period since the global financial crisis”.  Yes, global stocks have bounced back a bit after experiencing dramatic declines during January and the first part of February, and this is something that investors are very happy about.  But that does not mean that the crisis is over.  All bear markets have their ups and downs, and this one will not be any different.  Meanwhile, the cold, hard economic numbers that keep coming in are absolutely screaming that a new global recession is here.

Just consider what is happening in China.  Manufacturing activity continues to implode, and factories are shedding jobs at the fastest pace since the last financial crisis…

Chinese manufacturing suffered a seventh straight month of contraction in February.

China’s official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) stood at 49.0 in February, down from the previous month’s reading of 49.4 and below the 50-point mark that separates growth from contraction on a monthly basis.

A private survey also showed China’s factories shed jobs at the fastest rate in seven years in February, raising doubts about the government’s ability to reduce industry overcapacity this year without triggering a sharp jump in unemployment.

For years, the expansion of the Chinese economy has helped fuel global economic growth.  But now things have shifted dramatically.

At this point, things are already so bad that the Chinese government is admitting that millions of workers are going to lose their jobs at state-controlled industries in China…

China’s premier told visiting U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew on Monday his government is pressing ahead with painful reforms to shrink bloated coal and steel industries that are a drag on its slowing economy and ruled out devaluing its currency as a short-cut to boosting exports.

Premier Li Keqiang’s comments to Lew on Monday were in line with a joint declaration by financial officials from the Group of 20 biggest rich and developing economies who met over the weekend in Shanghai. They pledged to avoid devaluations to boost sagging trade and urged governments to speed up reforms to boost slowing global growth.

Across all state-controlled industries, as many as six million workers could be out of a job, with almost two million in the coal industry alone.

But it isn’t just China.  Right now manufacturing activity is slowing down literally all over the planet, and this is exactly what we would expect to see if a new global recession had begun.  The following chart and analysis come from Zero Hedge…

As the below table shows, 28 regions have reported so far. Seven saw improvements in their manufacturing sectors in February, twenty recorded a weakening, and India was unchanged. This means that over 70% of the world saw manufacturing sentiment deteriorate in February compared to January. 

In terms of actual expansion, there were 21 countries in positive territory and 7 in negative. In particular, Greece moved from neutral to contraction territory, while Taiwan dropped below breakeven from expansion.

Unfortunately, most Americans don’t really pay much attention to what is going on in the rest of the world.  For most of us, what really matters is what is happening inside the good ole USA.

And of course the news is not good.  There were more signs of trouble for U.S. manufacturing in the February numbers, and this continues a trend that stretches back well into last year.  The following is what Chris Williamson, the chief economist at Markit, had to say about these numbers…

“The February data add to signs of distress in the US manufacturing economy. Production and order book growth continues to worsen, led by falling exports. Jobs are being added at a slower pace and output prices are dropping at a rate not seen since mid-2012.

“The deterioration in the manufacturing sector’s performance since mid-2014 has broadly tracked the dollar’s rise, which makes US goods more expensive in overseas markets and leads US consumers to favour cheaper imported goods.

“With other headwinds including the downturn in the oil sector, heightened uncertainty due to financial market volatility, global growth worries and growing concerns about the presidential election, it’s no surprise that the manufacturing sector is facing its toughest period since the global financial crisis.“

Over the past couple of decades, the U.S. economy has lost tens of thousands of manufacturing facilities.  We desperately need a manufacturing renaissance – not another manufacturing decline.

As good paying manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas, they have been replaced by low paying service jobs.  As a result, the middle class is shrinkingand the ranks of the poor are exploding.

It is hard to believe, but today more than 45 million Americans are on food stamps, and a significant percentage of those individuals actually have jobs.  They are called “the working poor”, and it is becoming a major crisis in this nation.

And no matter what Obama may say, unemployment remains a major problem in the United States as well.  At this point, unemployment rates in 36 states are higher than they were just before the last recession hit in 2008.

Of course a lot of people are going to look at this article and will point to the stock market gains of the past couple of weeks as evidence that “things are getting better”.  It is this kind of clueless approach that is keeping the American people from coming together on solutions to our problems.

The truth is that the United States has been experiencing economic decline for decades.  Our economic infrastructure has been gutted, the middle class is steadily deteriorating, and we have amassed the biggest pile of debt in the history of the world.

Anyone that believes that things are “just fine” is in a massive state of denial.  Consuming far more wealth than we produce is not a formula for a sustainable economy, and it is just a matter of time before we find this out the hard way.

Credit to Economic Collapse

"We're In Trouble": Alan Greenspan Delivers Stark Warning

Were you wondering what Alan Greenspan thinks about the outlook for monetary policy across the globe?

Neither were we, but Bloomberg was and Tom Keene and Mike McKee got the “privilege” of sitting down with the “maestro” on Monday afternoon to discuss a variety of topics including NIRP, which Greenspan says “warps investment behavior.”

While he isn’t willing to go so far as to condemn negative rates as “dangerous,” he does say the global race to the proverbial Keynesian bottom is “counterproductive.”

As far as the US economy is concerned, Greenspan isn’t optimistic. “We’re in trouble basically because productivity is dead in the water…Real capital investment is way below average. Why? Because business people are very uncertain about the future.”

Well yes, they most certainly are. Of course were it not for “the Greenspan put” and decades of policy largesse we might not have ever had a financial crisis in the first place (David Stockman will tell you all about Greenspan’s role in creating the conditions we now find ourselves in).

As for whether Dodd-Frank has solved anything, Greenspan says no: "The regulations are supposed to be making changes of addressing the problems that existed in 2008 or leading up to 2008. It's not doing that. 'Too Big to Fail' is a critical issue back then, and now. And, there is nothing in Dodd-Frank which actually addresses this issue."

And finally, here’s the punchline. Asked whether he’s optimistic going forward, Greenspan said this: "No. I haven't been for quite a while. And I won’t be until we can resolve the entitlement programs. Nobody wants to touch it. And that is gradually crowding out capital investment, and that's crowding out productivity, and it's crowding out the standards of living where do you want me to go from there."

Now if only he hadn't gotten us into this mess in the first place...

Credit to Zero Hedge

MOSCOW DISTURBED OVER MASSIVE TURK MILITARY BUILDUP ON BORDER

The Council of Foreign Relations Declares War On Donald Trum

There will be no parades and no media shows which start out as… “we interrupt this broadcast to bring you this breaking news item…”, but the almighty Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) has spoken and they are endorsing a Hillary Clinton, but mostly they have issued a position statement that Donald Trump must be stopped at all costs.

This is the caricature of Trump that ran in the mouthpiece of the Council of Foreign Relations, The Economist. Since when does the self-proclaimed righteous defender of the elite, founded by John Rockefeller, lower themselves to such blatant and childish mudslinging? They don’t, and this behavior is representative of  a departure of tactics employed by the elite. And the fact that elite are approaching such a state of desperation, near-panic, if you will, all options are on the table. Again, I say, the elite are proclaiming that all options are on the table when it comes to the fate of Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is their choice and has always been their choice to follow Obama into the White House, with her criminal behavior notwithstanding.

The Council of Foreign Relations is no longer a secret, as it once was, and this is who Hillary Clinton serves. Look at the background behind Mrs. Clinton. This is how the CFR gives tacit approval. No matter how criminal, no matter how long the trail of bodies becomes, the CFR is “all in” for their support of America’s modern day version of Lizzy Borden.

As an average American, anytime the CFR, or its first cousin, the Trilateral Commission endorses a candidate, no matter how subtle the endorsement, I assume it is opposite day and move in the other direction.

Relevant CFR History

Do you know your CFR history? The CFR was the first “modern-day” globalist organization that arose in the early 1920’s when President Wilson was unable to convince the Senate and the American people that it would be a good idea to join The League of Nations, which arose out of the ashes of World War I.

The League of Nations, like its descendant, the United Nations, was designed to usurp national sovereignty from its member nations. The CFR was founded by John Rockefeller and they worked very hard at obscuring their existence in the media (whose top elite were members). Any talk of the CFR would have earned that person the original label of “conspiracy theorist”.

The main goal of the CFR is world governance and a one world economy that they control. The one world economy is taking shape and it is comprised of those people that Patrick Wood calls technocrats. I hope you are sitting down. These people are intent on owning all energy on the planet through unrealistic caps on our energy usage. Their system of carbon trading will reduce the lifestyles of the average person to about the 1870’s in terms of lifestyles, if we are lucky. Dehumanization and Depopulation are central themes of this approach. Pat Wood details this in his book Technocracy Rising.

Valerie Jarrett, who is really in charge of the White House?

The ushering in of these strict environmental regulations is why Obama is sitting in the White House. At some future date I will, in great detail, Obama’s connection to this group. Suffice for now, let’s just say that his original membership in the Joyce Foundation where Obama worked for Valerie Jarrett, now the senior-White House advisor is noteworthy. With the support of notables such as Al Gore, Warren Buffet and George Soros, the Joyce Foundation morphed into the intended carbon trading organization, The Chicago Climate Exchange.

Jarrett and Obama were unable to get the Chicago Climate Exchange to a position of prominence because Obama was unable to advance his complete Climate Change initiatives, to any degree, through the Congress. Later, Justice Scalia, was the swing vote on the Supreme Court that was standing in the way of Obama making his Climate Change initiatives law through executive branch fiat. And I am compelled to point out, where is Scalia today? This is a dire warning for Donald Trump.

When the smoke clears, Obama may not get his entire package codified into law. However, that is why the CFR has Hillary Clinton. At stake, is the world economy. The elite power structure of the CFR is in charge of the smart grid, and ultimately the use of all energy on this planet including the world’s new economy, carbon trading, the new global currency. Under this system, all debts will be forgiven because the people will be left with nothing when the bank runs, the bail-ins and the absolute collapse of the dollar takes place.

This is the most important Presidential race in our history because of the specter of technocracy. If Hillary secures the White House, the elite in the CFR are going to get exactly what they want, absolute power over the planet and with that, the complete power over who lives and who dies.

Let’s take a look at the CFR’s condemnation of Trump and their de facto endorsement of Clinton so there can be no doubt as to the accuracy of what I am speaking about.

Relevant Excerpts From The CFR’s The Economist

 …the Republican nomination could be all but over. Donald Trump has already won three of the first four contests. On March 1st, Super Tuesday, 12 more states will vote. Mr Trump has a polling lead in all but three of them. Were these polls to translate into results, as they have so far, Mr Trump would not quite be unbeatable. It would still be possible for another candidate to win enough delegates to overtake him. But that would require the front-runner to have a late, spectacular electoral collapse of a kind that has not been seen before. Right now the Republican nomination is his to lose...

With the statement the CFR alarm was sounded. But there is more…

When pollsters ask voters to choose in a face-off between Mr Trump and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner wins by less than three percentage points. Mr Trump would have plenty of time to try to close that gap. An economy that falls back into recession or an indictment for Mrs Clinton might do it for him.

That is an appalling prospect. The things Mr Trump has said in this campaign make him unworthy of leading one of the world’s great political parties, let alone America. One way to judge politicians is by whether they appeal to our better natures: Mr Trump has prospered by inciting hatred and violence. He is so unpredictable that the thought of him anywhere near high office is terrifying. He must be stopped (Editor’s Note: Stopped at all costs?).

This last statement is a declaration of war by the self-appointed elite in this country and this is so reminiscent of what happened to Bobby Kennedy.

When one is losing an argument, they resort to name-calling and that is what we see here where the power-brokers are so desperate that they resort to infantile name calling, taking quotes of out of context and engaging in the worst type of yellow journalism. There’s more…

,,,hinted that Antonin Scalia, a Supreme Court justice, was murdered (Editor’s Note: He wasmurdered); proposed banning all Muslims from visiting America (Editor’s Note: Trump stated that all immigrants should be screened, a sentiment embraced by most Americans with common sense).

Conclusion

What is the fate of all effective reformers.

When the Council of Foreign Relations declares war on an individual, history shows (e.g. JFK, RFK, MLK, et al) have a short shelf-life. One can only imagine how John F. Kennedy felt when he knew that the interlocked and combined forces of the Federal Reserve, the oil industry and the military industrial complete were closing in on him. Donald Trump is in a very similar position.

This is often the fate of those who would date to buck the CFR power elite. I liken Trump and his future to Larry McDonald than I do John Kennedy. I see it ending the same way.

I do not want to end this article on a note of doom and gloom. Those of who work in the Independent Media know that if you are going to be on the list, you better be on the top of the list. Right now, placing extreme attention on the topic of Trump’s safety, is the best way to keep him alive until election day.

Credit to Common Sense Show

Mega 7.9 Quake Hits Indonesia "Tsunami Warnings" Deaths Reported

Scientists Eagerly Await Rare Birth of 'Baby Dragons' in Slovenian Cave

In a Slovenian cave only accessible by an underground train, scientists are eagerly awaiting the rare hatching of more than 57 "baby dragon" eggs.

The "baby dragons" aren't really dragons, but olms -- ancient, blind salamanders that resemble the mythological creature, according to biologist Sašo Weldt, who studies the amphibians at Postojna Cave in Slovenia.

Though olms have existed for at least 15 million years, Slovenians first documented seeing them in the middle of the 17th century, when they apparently washed up from underground rivers after heavy rains, Weldt told ABC News.

"People had never seen it and didn't know what it was," he said. "During the winter time, clouds of fog often rose from the cave, so they came up with stories of a dragon breathing fire from the cave, and they thought the olms were its babies."

Though olms don't breathe fire nor grow to gargantuan sizes, they do have several "unusual attributes and features" that make them quite fascinating creatures, Weldt said.

"They're believed to be able to live 100 years or longer, and they can survive without food for up to 10 years," he explained. "They have transparent white skin that also covers their eyes, but they don't need to see. They have incredible sense of smell and hearing and can detect detect light and electrical or magnetic fields."

Weldt added that female olms only reproduce once every six to seven years. The rare birth of olms has only been witnessed in labs, but for the first time, the public may be able to view a hatching at the Postojna Cave, where Weldt works, he said.

The first time eggs were found in the cave was in 2013, Weldt explained, but he said that they were unfortunately eaten before any could be born.

In January a tour guide noticed a new olm egg. Now, there are over 57.

"This time, we've removed all the other olms to make sure [the eggs] don't get eaten again," Weldt said. "We're hopeful for a successful birth."

He added that the cave's scientists have set up cameras that use infrared light to capture the "Mama Dragon" and her little ones, so that cave visitors can keep tabs on them as well.

Credit to gma.yahoo.com

https://gma.yahoo.com/scientists-eagerly-await-rare-birth-baby-dragons-slovenian-180638143--abc-news-topstories.html