So? Once more, crimes of others do not justify your crimes. Got it?

Entering the Greatest Depression in History
More Bubbles Waiting to Burst

Introduction

While there is much talk of a recovery on the horizon, commentators are forgetting some crucial aspects of the financial crisis. The crisis is not simply composed of one bubble, the housing real estate bubble, which has already burst. The crisis has many bubbles, all of which dwarf the housing bubble burst of 2008. Indicators show that the next possible burst is the commercial real estate bubble. However, the main event on the horizon is the “bailout bubble” and the general world debt bubble, which will plunge the world into a Great Depression the likes of which have never before been seen.

Housing Crash Still Not Over


The housing real estate market, despite numbers indicating an upward trend, is still in trouble, as, “Houses are taking months to sell. Many buyers are having trouble getting financing as lenders and appraisers struggle to figure out what houses are really worth in the wake of the collapse.” Further, “the overall market remains very soft [...] aside from speculators and first-time buyers.” Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington said, “It would be wrong to imagine that we have hit a turning point in the market,” as “There is still an enormous oversupply of housing, which means that the direction of house prices will almost certainly continue to be downward.” Foreclosures are still rising in many states “such as Nevada, Georgia and Utah, and economists say rising unemployment may push foreclosures higher into next year.” Clearly, the housing crisis is still not at an end.

Gerald Celente, the head of the Trends Research Institute, the major trend-forecasting agency in the world, wrote in May of 2009 of the “bailout bubble.” Celente’s forecasts are not to be taken lightly, as he accurately predicted the 1987 stock market crash, the fall of the Soviet Union, the 1998 Russian economic collapse, the 1997 East Asian economic crisis, the 2000 Dot-Com bubble burst, the 2001 recession, the start of a recession in 2007 and the housing market collapse of 2008, among other things.

On May 13, 2009, Celente released a Trend Alert, reporting that, “The biggest financial bubble in history is being inflated in plain sight,” and that, “This is the Mother of All Bubbles, and when it explodes [...] it will signal the end to the boom/bust cycle that has characterized economic activity throughout the developed world.” Further, “This is much bigger than the Dot-com and Real Estate bubbles which hit speculators, investors and financiers the hardest. However destructive the effects of these busts on employment, savings and productivity, the Free Market Capitalist framework was left intact. But when the 'Bailout Bubble' explodes, the system goes with it.”

Celente further explained that, “Phantom dollars, printed out of thin air, backed by nothing ... and producing next to nothing ... defines the ‘Bailout Bubble.’ Just as with the other bubbles, so too will this one burst. But unlike Dot-com and Real Estate, when the "Bailout Bubble" pops, neither the President nor the Federal Reserve will have the fiscal fixes or monetary policies available to inflate another.” Celente elaborated, “Given the pattern of governments to parlay egregious failures into mega-failures, the classic trend they follow, when all else fails, is to take their nation to war,” and that, “While we cannot pinpoint precisely when the 'Bailout Bubble' will burst, we are certain it will. When it does, it should be understood that a major war could follow.”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14680

Predicting Worse Ahead from America's Economic Crisis

Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises (1881 - 1973) said:

"There is no means of avoiding a final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."

Under Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and successive US Treasury Secretaries, America chose the latter path and now faces the consequences of their reckless, criminal behavior.

In early 2009, economist Michael Hudson said:

The (US) economy has reached its debt limit and is entering its insolvency phase. We are not in a cycle but (at) the end of an era. The old world of debt pyramiding to a fraudulent degree cannot be restored," only delayed to postpone a painful day of reckoning.

Economist Hyman Minsky (1919 - 1996) described a "Ponzi finance" system during prolonged expansions and economic booms. Speculative excesses create bubbles, triggering structural instability, then asset valuation collapse that turns euphoria to revulsion and market crashes.

On December 29, 2008, the Wall Street Journal online headlined: "As if Things Weren't Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of US," then continued:

"For a decade, Russian academic (and former KGB analyst) Igor Panarin has been predicting the US will fall apart in 2010" to include an "economic and moral collapse, a civil war, and the eventual breakup of the country." For years, no one took him seriously, but no longer. He's invited to Kremlin receptions, gets interviewed twice a day, publishes books, is a frequent lecturer, and appears regularly in the media as an expert on US - Russia relations as well as the great interest in his predictions and new book titled, "The Crash of America."

On March 25, 2009, RussiaToday.com headlined: "Is there anything Obama can do about the US Collapse?" No, according to Panarin, for these reasons:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15063

I know all this academic stuff but on the ground, the nuts and bolts of the global economic order with it's uniquely Anglo-Saxon legal bias -who has the capacity to take it on and run it as a fully functioning system other than the Americans who have essentially become the successors to the British in expanding capitalism's scope and magnitude.

I can tell you for a fact that no matter who owns a business, fund or such like all across the world, there is invariably a Brit, American, Canadian, South African. New Zealander, Irishman or Australian running the show, directly or behind the scenes. No matter what you do within Anglo-Saxon capitalism, you are utterly reliant on those with the skills to navigate it's rule. And that is where most non-Anglo wannabes are snookered, including the Japanese, Germans, French and Italians. To be an effective alternative to the current form of capitalism. Russia, China, whatever will have to reinvent it's very bones and skeleton into something that reflects their commecial logic. And they simply don't have what it takes. I have a nightmare trying to advise my non-Anglo clients who simply aren't able to grasp simple common law concepts which we take for granted in business and invariably rely on those who are. Their achilles heel of dependance.

As someone running a business in Asia (I'm Aussie American) I can agree with AD's point here and elaborate.

Graft is not part of mainstream business in modern Anglo Saxon systems.
Yes there are situations where the wheels get greased; but nothing like the way it seems to work throughout Asia.

Here if you don't pay cash regularly under the table to TPTB you won't be in business very long. This makes factoring in the way westerners do almost impossible. Many find it a complete affront to their morals when they find out that's how it works and refuse to play. Some fools think because they are westerners they can change the local rules of play, or ignore them. This is very dangerous to their personal health.

In places like the quite Americanised part of the Phlippines where I live, graft, known usually as utang na loob (giving in appreciation) or in English protection, runs on a fixed price per month. This keeps the local situation stable whilst satisfying the need of western business planning methods.

I find here when trying to explain the way things 'should' work, people understand but jump straight to 'but not in here'. The corruption in the system has gone on so long and is the most lucrative part of local economies here; it's not about to change.

From what I here from friends working in other parts of Asia it's the same or worse.

I think it's more of a mindset thing. Those minds adapted to the rules of common law business cannot comprehend of these rules conferring anything but full title to whatever property one is dealing with, whether its something as real as land or as tenuous as a third or fourth security over that land.

Its this ability to comprehensively commodify what were previously commons that has set the anglo-sphere apart from the rest of capitalism and placed it at the fore of the global order.

One good example is Dubai which is leveraged to the hilt with contemporary legal forms borrowed from common law but standing precariously on the edge with outdated remedies that do not co-exist with multi-tiered leveraging, remedies such as the debtors prisons. Dubai is a disaster waiting to happen and neither I nor any savvy investor would invest there in a month of Sundays.

Money flows into markets with maximum return and minimal exposure. Anything else is not all it seems. China is equally risky but its growth rates, rate of return, command structure, secular leadership and the fact that it is owned by America and the West tends to mitigate those risks and improve it's attractiveness. Russia is a no-no with investors. We simply know little about its mechanisms and its legal structure is as antiquated as the likes of the ME.

That's a bold statement about no graft in the anglosphere. Here in Toronto, the municipal budget has increased 50% in the last 5 years without any 1) inflation and 2) population growth to explain this budget growth. The municipal government keeps on whining about how it has no money (I guess $9 billion a year is not enough) and the roads are literally falling apart. The budget cannot be explained by new social programs as basically all of the provincial downloading by the Harris government was done over 10 years ago. Affordable housing is something the municipality does not build. Instead there was a more or less secret program (i.e. no advertisement) to give condo builders grants (not loans) to set aside a few units with a cheaper price (this must be some new concept in public housing: have the poor buy a condo). Basically something smells rotten in Toronto, but since the official MSM propaganda line is that there is no corruption in Canada there is not even any coverage of this issue. Why steal under the table when you can steal "legally". This is graft in anything but name.

The common law legal system covers any number of financial sins but thats its beauty, the system is flexible enough to confer a legality on them. The very Treaty basis of countries like Canada, the US and the rest is debateable but they are taken for granted because they have the mysique of the "Law" conferred on them. The Enclosures were likewise another device, legalised and immunised. The point being made here is that this feature is what gives the Anglosphere its commercial vitality, a vitality unique to the system and that is incapable of being replicated other than by full immersion of the succeeding cultural entity.

Funny thing is the legal graft of the western system (taxes, fees, stamp duties, licencing etc is much more expensive than the unofficial graft of much of Asia. For example; where I am the standard protection payment is 1000 ($20 USD) peso a month for a small locally owned sari store, 1000 a week for a resort or more commercial enterprize. To run a commercial enterprize here means weekly meetings with local officials over a cup of tea and some pesos are mandatory. It would cost me about one hundred times as much in Australia just to secure premises and licenses.
Here in the Philippines you can start a business for well under $1000USD.
Rent in advance, business registration, licensing, rent and graft fees.

On A.D's point as to the Russian situation; it seems Russia is paying the price of isolationism. The cultural disdain for things American has left the Russians trying to reinvent the wheel to not be seen as weak by Citizens.
I agree way too little is known about how the Russian set up works.
It doesn't help that it seems like a random duck shoot sometimes as to which oligarks get to hang on to their assets, which get charged with some crime and locked up for a decade or more.

Russia does not have centuries of stable development like the UK. Flipping from communism to capitalism isn't just a government policy change and requires a bottom up reworking of the whole society. After a recent visit there it looks like they need at least another 20 years to transition. It will take much longer to undo the damage done by the comprador Yeltsin regime in the 1990s. But at least Russia has a chance since its government is not run by the oligarchs like some banana republic. It is quite revealing how the west is only happy when Russia is on its way to hell in a hand basket (e.g. 1990s) and starts to throw hysterical tantrums when things are getting better (the last 10 years). While the Los Angeles Times called Yeltsin a "palpable humanitarian" it painted Putin as Stalin re-incarnate. This is simply inane propaganda. Under Yeltsin you had the stereotypical abuses of a tyrant (e.g. steal some bread because you are starving and you do hard time in a labour camp). Under Putin the massive jail population built up by Yeltsin was reduced by over 200,000 and real legal reform (jury trials, probation, jail alternative sentences like community service, etc) was undertaken. During the 1930s the pattern of western malice was also apparent, while millions of Soviet citizens were sent off to gulags you had praise for the progress of communism, but when the Pol Pot style social engineering nightmare was over after WWII the west delivered the cold war. The cold war was a good racket, especially for the USA. It could install death squad juntas in Latin America in the name of democracy and capitalism and keep the banana republic economies running. Unlike the USA, the USSR gained nothing economically from client states.

I agree with one part of this statement, it is not a Banana Republic.

As to the oligarchs, it has new ones that need to play to a different "tune", and the melody is not being composed in London or New York.

The tune is being composed by the elected Russian government and this drives the west crazy.

I gained faith in Russia after Putin but soon realized that Russkies will always be Russkies. They are like the strip joint muscle head bouncers. They lack vision and are always scared little big babies deep inside.
When American subs drowned their Kursk, they just accepted cash and forgot about those that perished. US would have never gone down the same path and thats why they are where they are. Furthermore, US is helping their ME ally, 'that shitty little country' with impunity and in defiance of everything and everyone under the sun; the Russkies are too scared to honor their legal contracts with their ally- Iran. They are scared that they might get isolated. This way they can never gain a solid foothold in ME.... the lack of vision that I was talking about.
Russians would forgo a million dollar tomorrow in favor of 100 bucks today. Thats why they will always be a second rate power with or without the US or West.

Actually, I disagree. The US is not acting in defiance of any entrenched opposition to its global hegemony apart from a few crazy muslims, and economic historians who can see where all this is going to end. America steers the global capital market, Russia is a passenger like everyone else. Hence the power disparity.