By Cees Bruggemans

After massive shocks savaged the economy last year, by 4Q2008 (really already 3Q2008) putting us into recession, the only question basically mattering now is whether there are yet more of these massive shocks to be absorbed shortly. For if we are, we will remain probably repressed, recessed if not depressed for much longer.

But short of a large meteorite striking the southern oceans, and wiping out our living space, I am having little success identifying the rogues that will do us in.

Perhaps I am not looking hard enough?

For could the global banking system still encounter a relapse, with another big bankruptcy, fragile nerves failing once more spectacularly, yet with global policymakers by now having shot away all their ammunitions, their cupboards bare of the means to address yet more catastrophic failures?

Then again, have global policymakers already overreached themselves, burdening their national finances and

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Debt-based monetary systems are inherently unstable. Money is created out of thin air by the banks and lent to government, consumers and businesses. In order to service and replay those debts, the borrowers take on more debts. Asset prices are inflated, and the vicious cycle continues until the debtors are unable to borrow or the banks are unwilling to lend. At that point the system snaps, everything is sold off, and we have a financial crisis at hand. In this paper we examine what happens to equity and currency markets in the aftermath of financial crisis.

1998 Russia

Declining productivity, an artificially high fixed exchange rate between the ruble and foreign currencies to avoid public turmoil, and a chronic fiscal deficit were the background to Russia ’s financial meltdown in 1998. The economic cost of the first war in Chechnya that …

On New Years eve day, gold got sold off in the Far East a bit…and then the down trend accelerated through London trading, with the bottom being the London p.m. gold fix. From there…and to everyone’s surprise…the price took off to the upside with some real authority. True, there hadn’t been a lot of volume up until that point, but that changed from the London p.m. fix until the close of trading in New York. Silver’s chart was very similar, with the metal turning in an outstanding day as well. Gold put in an “outside day key reversal to the upside”…which is a very bullish technical indicator. The boyz have never…ever…allowed this technical indicator to work in gold…and have taken gold down the very next day to negate it.

The world’s gold market’s were closed on January 1st, but once early morning trading began on January 2nd in the Far East,

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Controversy surrounding the Romanian economy is nothing new, nor, as a href="http://globaleconomydoesmatter.blogspot.com/2008/11/romania-votes-under-new-electoral.html"Manuel points out in his post on the recent election/a, are Romanian politics strangers to tumult. Nonetheless the intensity of controversy has grown considerably of late, with a wide variety of assessments being offered concerning the likely impact of the intensifying international credit crisis on the short to medium term outlook for the Romanian economy. National Bank of Romania (NBR) governor, Mugur Isarescu, has been consistently arguing that the country should be able to avoid an excessively "hard landing"as the bank attempts to cool its evidently overheated economy and engages of fire-extinguising activities in the banking sector trying to control the impact of set of adverse external circumstances that are largely beyond its control. But most of these comments (or at least the more convincing ones) preceded the meltdown in the international financial markets which followed the Lehman Brothers ...

by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /Controversy surrounding the Romanian economy is nothing new, nor, as a href="http://globaleconomydoesmatter.blogspot.com/2008/11/romania-votes-under-new-electoral.html"Manuel points out in his post on the recent election/a, are Romanian politics strangers to tumult. Nonetheless the intensity of controversy has grown considerably of late, with a wide variety of assessments being offered concerning the likely impact of the intensifying international credit crisis on the short to medium term outlook for the Romanian economy.National Bank of Romania (NBR) governor, Mugur Isarescu, has been consistently arguing that the country should be able to avoid an excessively "hard landing"as the bank attempts to cool its evidently overheated economy and engages of fire-extinguising activities in the banking sector trying to control the impact of set of adverse external circumstances that are largely beyond its control. But most of these comments (or at least the more convincing ones) preceded the meltdown in the international financial markets which ...