With the COVID-19 panic grabbing the headline news and with nations in lockdown, long forgotten are the massive protests sweeping the world against corrupt governments, violence, crime, and the lack of basic living standards. Indeed, the world was sinking into the “Greatest Depression,” as we have clearly delineated in the Trends Journal over the past year. Now, with the global meltdown from...

The European Union has suspended its ban on government subsidies to businesses as member nations pledge hundreds of billions of euros to save industries, sustain companies, and pay laid-off workers as the implications of their response to the virus plays out. France already has promised €45 billion to re-inflate its economy. The Netherlands has announced bold tax exemptions and guarantees...

As the Trends Journal has been reporting, U.S. oil companies – especially those heavily invested in fracked wells – are facing three threats to their existence: oil prices lower than they’ve been for years and, for many companies, lower than the cost of pulling oil out of the ground; the global economic shutdown; and $86 billion in bonded debt coming...

U.S. Mega-Banks Going Bust? From 14 February through 20 March, five of the largest U.S. banks lost an average of 45 percent of their stock market value, reports Wall Street on Parade (WSOP): Bank of America: -43.6 percent Citigroup: -51.7 percent Goldman Sachs: -41.6 percent JP Morgan Chase: -39.3 percent Morgan Stanley: -46.9 percent The combined loss totals $154.45 billion...

The overloaded $1.2 trillion market in junk bonds – bonds issued by high-risk companies – is showing strains and may break down completely. Years of low interest rates and easy credit have encouraged companies to borrow to buy their own or others’ stocks, to buy other companies, or to expand operations, among other financial adventures. Investors have been accommodating, using...