Economic Meltdown 2009 – Gerald Celente, Bob Chapman & Robbie Noel

• John Stadtmiller (National Intel Report) interviews : Gerald Celente, Bob Chapman and Robbie Noel on the economic meltdown in 2009.  What is to come. Interviewed on 13 Jan 2009.
   
• Snippets :
  • Confiscation of Gold, Gold prices, elite cornering gold market ?.. … Gold should be well over US$2000/ounce, severe currency panic worldwide….
  • Hyper Inflation, cheap money…
  • Retail and Consumer Spending Collapse, retailers collapsing
  • Retail and Commercial Real Estate crisis
  • Wall Street has hijack Washington in broad day light
  • A Communist United Soviet States of  America
  • Return to Gold Standard Currency ?
  • Unemployment and increasingly violence, riots…
  • World War 3 ? Nuclear War …

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Economic Snippets – Asia Pacific

• Aussie jobless rate at 4.5% :
   
  SYDNEY – AUSTRALIAN unemployment rose to 4.5 per cent in December, its highest level in almost two years, as the global economic slowdown hurt growth, official figures showed on Thursday.  The jobless rate was up from 4.4 per cent in November, with 43,900 fewer people in full-time work, taking the jobless rate to its highest level since March 2007.A total of 7.6 million Australians were in full-time work in December, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said. Part-time work figures rose by 42,800, taking the total part-time workforce to 3.1 million. The total number of people employed in the economy dropped by 1,200 to 10.74 million in seasonally-adjusted terms. In November total employment was 10.75 million, down from 10.77 million in October. 
    

• Japan logs worst-ever fall in machinery orders :
   
  TOKYO: Japanese machinery orders plunged at the fastest pace on record in November as companies slashed investment to cope with the deepening recession, official figures showed Thursday.
   
  The slump took economists by surprise and added to the gloom surrounding Asia’s biggest economy, which has been hit hard by a slump in exports. Core machinery orders, a leading indicator of corporate capital spending, fell 16.2 per cent in November from the previous month, the steepest fall since comparable records began in 1987, the government said.
   
  The figures “showed clearly that corporate sentiment is worsening rapidly,” said Resona Research Institute economist Hideyuki Araki. “Companies are slamming the brakes on production and capital investment, sending (the economy) into a state of freefall,” he said.Market forecasts had been for a drop of 7.5 per cent, after a 4.4 per cent decline in October. The grim figures reinforced fears that Japan’s recession deepened in the fourth quarter of last year as the global economic crisis escalated. “The economy is worsening so quickly that even economists cannot assess it properly,” Daiwa Institute of research economist Hiroshi Watanabe said.
   
  “As exports are falling, inventory stockpiles are increasing, prompting companies to curb production. They can’t spend in this climate,” he said, predicting further falls in orders.
   
  Orders by manufacturers dived a record 33.2 per cent in November amid weak demand from export-oriented companies such as car and electronics makers. Orders by non-manufacturers rose 0.5 per cent. Foreign demand fell 14.4 per cent.
   
  “Capital spending is plunging, mainly among export companies which are facing losses,” said Naoki Murakami, chief economist at Monex Securities. 
    

• Shipping rates hit zero as trade sinks :
   
  Freight rates for containers shipped from Asia to Europe have fallen to zero for the first time since records began, underscoring the dramatic collapse in trade since the world economy buckled in October. 
   
  “They have already hit zero,” said Charles de Trenck, a broker at Transport Trackers in Hong Kong. “We have seen trade activity fall off a cliff. Asia-Europe is an unmit­igated disaster.” 
   
  Shipping journal Lloyd’s List said brokers in Singapore are now waiving fees for containers travelling from South China, charging only for the minimal “bunker” costs. Container fees from North Asia have dropped $200, taking them below operating cost.  Industry sources said they have never seen rates fall so low. “This is a whole new ball game,” said one trader. 
    …….
  Trade data from Asia’s export tigers has been disastrous over recent weeks, reflecting the collapse in US, UK and European markets. Korea’s exports fell 30pc in January compared to a year earlier. Exports have slumped 42pc in Taiwan and 27pc in Japan, according to the most recent monthly data. Even China has now started to see an outright contraction in shipments, led by steel, electronics and textiles.
   
  A report by ING yesterday said shipping activity at US ports has suddenly dived. Outbound traffic from Long Beach and Los Angeles, America’s two top ports, has fallen by 18pc year-on-year, a far more serious decline than anything seen in recent recessions.
   
  “This is no regular cycle slowdown, but a complete collapse in foreign demand,” said Lindsay Coburn, ING’s trade consultant. Idle ships are now stretched in rows outside Singapore’s harbour, creating an eerie silhouette like a vast naval fleet at anchor. Shipping experts note the number of vessels moving around seem unusually high in the water, indicating low cargoes. 
      
• These are not your normal economic statistics for a recession. Global trade is collapsing. Many shipping companies will go bust.

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Europe – UK and Germany Economies Collapsed in Late 2008

Outook For U.K. Economy; Germany Considers More Stimulus

Recession & Rescues Plans; Outlook 2009: Salvaging The Economy

• 2 of the biggest economies in the world are seeing clear signs of a worsening slump. More bad news to come. ECB should be cutting interest rates soon by 0.5%. I would not be surprised if they cut by 0.75%. EU economies are in deep deep trouble.
   
• Thorsten Polleit of Barclays Capital Frankfurt :
   
  “We have a paper money system which now actually is about to contract credit and money supply. And this argues strongly for deflation in the years ahead. The fiscal stimulus packages won’t be effective. They won’t be effective in dealing with this issue. And even low interest rates in an effort to stimulate credit supply and money growth might no longer be the effective tools. …..
     ….
  So far we are dealing with the symptoms rather than addressing the causes of the crisis. The only solution which is available is to return to a kind of Gold Standard model where the money supply is linked to the remaining gold reserves in central banks. Thereby restoring confidence and preventing the money and credit supply from contracting and getting us into a long and prolonged deflation”
   
• A return to the Gold Standard postulated by Thorsten Polleit. Great idea ! We can put a stop to all the profligate spending by governments. And put an end to central banks printing funny money out of thin air. Nice one dude ! I am impressed !
   
• German GDP shrank by an estimated 1.5-2.0% in the 4th quarter. Isabelle Le Page reports in German economy ‘collapsed in late 2008, worse on the way’ :
   
  The contraction was in line with suggestions from officials in recent weeks, and underscored problems facing Europe’s biggest economy. “Germany is witnessing its worst economic period in decades. It is a situation in which economic textbooks serve no purpose,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told the Bundestag, or lower house of parliament, after the estimate was released.
   
  With German exports plunging and industrial orders for November showing no signs of relief on the way, many economists had forecast a bleak fourth quarter. “This means the starting point for 2009 is really bad,” Commerzbank chief economist Joerg Kraemer said.
   
  “We still expect GDP to shrink by 2.0 to 3.0 percent in 2009, which would be the sharpest decline in the history of the Federal Republic,” he added. German economic activity expanded by 1.3 percent for all of 2008, nearly half the 2007 figure, the Destatis national statistics service said, and below the government’s forecast of 1.7 percent.
   
  Growth of exports, the main pillar of the economy, was cut nearly in half, and the trend in business investment began to weaken as well.
   

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US Dec Retail Sales Drops 2.7%

• US December retail sales dropped by a much larger than expected 2.7% MoM. Bloomberg reports :
   
  Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) — Sales at U.S. retailers fell more than twice as much as forecast in December as job losses and the lack of credit led Americans to cut back on everything from car purchases to eating out.
   
  The 2.7 percent slump marked the sixth straight month of declines, the longest string since comparable records began in 1992, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Labor Department data showed the global collapse in commodities caused prices of goods imported by the U.S. to fall for a fifth month.
   
  Today’s sales figures indicate the hit to spending in the recession is even deeper than estimated, and spurred a sell-off in stocks. The loss of 2.6 million jobs and declining home and stock values are squeezing households, hurting retailers from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to Tiffany & Co., which today said its holiday sales fell 21 percent and cut its earnings forecast. 
   
  Retail sales fell 0.1 percent for all of 2008 compared with the prior year, the first decrease in the Commerce Department’s records. Comparable data only go back to 1992 because government economists reformulated their retail-sales figures earlier this decade, and didn’t revise historical records beyond that year. 
    ……
  November’s decline was revised to 2.1 percent from a previously estimated fall of 1.8 percent. Today’s report showed declines in 11 of the 13 major categories tracked by the government, led by a 16 percent plunge at gasoline service stations that partly reflected the slump in fuel costs. The drop at grocery stores was the biggest since April 2002 and the decrease at restaurants was the largest since the terrorist attacks in September 2001.
    
  Only health and beauty stores and a miscellaneous category saw increases last month. Purchases of expensive goods are falling as banks restrict access to credit. Auto sales fell 36 percent in December from the same month last year, capping the industry’s worst year since 1992.
   
  Same-store sales dropped 2.2 percent in the last two months of 2008, making it the worst holiday shopping season in almost four decades of record keeping, the International Council of Shopping Centers said last week.
    
  The first half of this year will also be “extraordinarily challenging,” Wal-Mart Chief Executive Officer H. Lee Scott told a retailers’ convention this week in New York City. “Some people are giving up eating out; some people are giving up movies; some people are giving up other things like shopping,” Scott said. “Those are fundamental changes that will continue.”
     
  Knoxville, Tennessee-based Goody’s LLC, operator of a 282- store U.S. clothing chain, and Fresno, California-based Gottschalks Inc., owner of department stores in six western states, sought bankruptcy protection after sales slumped. 
   
• No retail recovery in sight as consumers save more, eat out less and do with less discretionary spending. More bankruptcies are coming for the retail and wholesale business. The good news is that there will be a lot of bargains if you have the money.
   

MoM – Month over Month

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