THE “GREATEST DEPRESSION” DATA: IT’S IN THE NUMBERS

All around the world, as markets cool, political unrest heats up. 

It’s all part of the “Greatest Depression”: when people lose everything and have nothing left to lose, they lose it… and the markets are losing it, too.

The global slowdown will accelerate and equity markets will decline.

It’s in the numbers.

Mergers and acquisitions have fallen 11 percent so far this year, as companies brace for periods of growing economic uncertainty. 

To keep the cheap money flowing, this year more than 30 central banks around the globe have lowered their interest rates and dozens are expected to cut their rates again next quarter. 

Last week, the Australian central bank dropped interest rates, already at their lowest in history, to a new low of 0.75 percent.

India also cut its rates again last week, bringing them down to 5.15 from 5.40 percent in hopes of propping up their slowing economy. 

With auto and motorcycle sales dramatically down, consumer spending markedly slowing, and fears of a cash crunch, India’s central bank tweeted out assurances that there will be “plenty of dough for depositors.” They claimed the reports of bank instability were “rumors.”

China, the world’s second-largest economy, posted its slowest economic growth since 1990. To date, government measures have failed to reverse the trend. 

Refusing to aggressively lower rates, Chinese attempts to boost the economy with fiscal policy, such as infrastructure spending, have failed. Infrastructure investment is up only 4 percent from January to August compared with 20 percent only two years ago.

Moreover, Chinese private bond defaults are up 60 percent in the first eight months of the year.

In Europe, in addition to playing the monetary stimulus card, the European Central Bank’s President Mario Draghi called for “unity,” urging member states of the Eurozone to commit to fiscal spending.

Numerous European nations, including Germany, which is slowing into recession, however, are opposing the ECB’s stimulus mandate. They want to keep their budgets balanced and are not willing to drag their nation into debt.

On the bankster side, to boost fees lost because of low interest rates, down about 20 percent this year, banks increased their lending to corporations eager to borrow cheap money. 

Thus, the $250 trillion global-debt bubble continues to swell.

TREND FORECAST: Be it monetary or fiscal stimulus, it’s becoming increasingly clear that neither measure – although they might temporarily boost sagging economies – will not reverse the oncoming “Greatest Depression.”

We forecast that U.S. equities, however, have topped out, and, as the impeachment process against President Trump accelerates, it will push them much lower.

Further, as economies continue to decline, social unrest will dramatically escalate, as evidenced in nations from South America to Africa, from Asia to the Middle East, and from Europe… soon to the United States.