[ I can’t keep up with the flood of news about corruption, fraud and economic instability, which is just a symptom of the real problem: the end of growth. In a credit/debit system, lenders won’t lend if they think the money won’t be repaid. That hasn’t been a problem for the last 100 years as we exponentially produced more oil, coal, and natural gas.  But that ended in 2005 when peak conventional oil was reached and it is likely we’ve reached global peak coal as well.  

If we have another crash, there goes to the credit for oil companies to explore and drill for more oil, and there goes the ability of the rest of society to grow businesses and repay creditors. It’s already happening, only 2.4 billion barrels of oil were found in 2016 but we burn 30 billion barrels a year. In fact, we’ve been using more oil than’ we’ve found for decades. This is why the financial system is included in the Fast Crash category, even though it’s obviously peak energy and resources limiting growth.  Also, to most people it will appear that the financial system was at fault, not lack of energy.

Below are links to just a few of the “crash coming” articles I run across, just like I did long before 2008. This time we’ll be in much worse shape since the central banks can’t keep printing money forever.

Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, Springer and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Podcasts: Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, KunstlerCast 253, KunstlerCast278, Peak Prosperity , XX2 report ]

Fraud, corruption, and economic instability

Crash coming   Also see posts in category Crash Coming Soon

• 2017-8-1 The sequel to the global financial crisis is here
• 2017-4-30 Eric Peters: If Rates Ever Rise Above 3.5% “It Would Spark Massive Defaults”
• 2017-3-11 #89: Chinese whispers. What is really happening with the Chinese economy? 
• 2017-3-9 Bill Gross “Show me the money“
• 2016-10-24 As Europe and Asia Hoard Cash, Economists See Echoes of Crisis.
• 2016-9-27 Global Container Volume on Track for Worst Year Since 2009.  Flat growth in the beleaguered shipping industry could set off further bankruptcies and possible acquisitions. Wall Street Journal.
• 2016-04-03 Stanley Druckenmiller: “This Is The Most Unsustainable Situation I Have Seen In My Career”. Simple Math Shows America Is Headed for an Economic Disaster

Wall Street

• 2016-04-11 Goldman Sachs Slammed with $5.1 Billion Fine for Serious Misconduct in Mortgage Selling
• 2013-12-28 An Open Letter to the Makers of the Wolf of Wall Street, and the Wolf Himself
• 2013-01-28 How Bond Trading On Wall Street Really Works

Banks

2016-04-09 Wells Fargo “Admits Deceiving” U.S. Government, Pays Record $1.2 Billion Settlement

Fracked oil and gas “tight” bubble

• 2016-04-12 A “Massive” New Headache For Banks Has Emerged: Shale Drillers
• 2016-04-01 As U.S. shale drillers suffer, even the bankrupt keep pumping oil
• 2016-01-26 25 Years of Fed Fueled M&A – The Enabling of A Banking Oligopoly
• 2016-01-20 A Glimpse of Things to Come: Bankrupt Shale Producers “Can’t Give Their Assets Away”

Housing Bubble

• 2017-5-25 Millennials Want to Buy Homes but Aren’t Saving for Down Payments Less than 30% of 25- to 34-year-olds can save enough for a 10% down payment in next three years
• 2010-10-14 Same Person Forged Billions of Dollars Worth of Mortgage Documents for Bank of America, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank and Dozens of Other Lenders and Shells

Auto loan bubble

• 2017-5-29 US banks pull back from $1.2tn car loans market. Overstretched consumers raise fears of bubble in echo of subprime mortgage crisis
• 2016-11-30 6 million Americans have stopped paying their car loans, and it’s becoming a ‘significant concern’
• 2014-07-20 “Buying the Car Was the Worst Decision I Ever Made”: The Subprime Auto Loan Bubble Bursts

Student debt bubble

2016-04-07 Shocking statistic: Over 40% of student borrowers don’t make payments

Debt

• 2017-4-30 40% of Americans spend up to half of their income servicing debt
• 2016-12-16 Are debt-laden American consumers about to get crushed by higher interest rates?
• 2016-10-13 Subprime Auto Securitizations Show Signs Of Cracking As Delinquencies
• 2016-8-26 “Things Are Worse” – Dollar Stores’ Startling Admission: Half Of US Consumers Are In Dire Straits
• 2016-8-12 North American Life Insurers “Accidentally” Pile Up Massive Distressed Debt Holdings
• 2016-8-1  Which Households Have Negative Wealth?
• 2016-04-14 Former Fed Advisor Asks “Has The Fed Bankrupted The Nation?”
• 2016-03-28 Nations Awash in Debt: Fragile to Global Shocks

Distribution of Wealth

• 2017-1-16 Eight billionaires ‘as rich as world’s poorest half’ BBC
• 2016-8-24 Most millennials have less than $1,000 in savings, live paycheck-to-paycheck
• 2016-05-19 Poll: Two-thirds of US would struggle to cover $1,000 crisis
• 2016-05-06 No Wonder We’re Poorer: Wages’ Share Of GDP Has Fallen for 46 Years
• 2016-04-21 47% Of Americans Can’t Even Come Up With $400 to cover an Emergency Room Visit
• 2016-03-06 John Perkins: The Shadow World Of The Economic Hitman
• 2016-02-23 The Evil Empire has the World in an Economic “Death Grip”
• 2012-03-27 $105,637 for Me, $80 for You!

Tax Havens

• 2016-04-14 US corporations have $1.4 trillion hidden in tax havens, claims Oxfam report
• 2016-04-07 Lessons of the Panama Papers: Yes, the rich are different from us – They stole our money.
• 2016-04-07 For research, we pretended to be crooks and terrorists and tried to buy shell companies. The results were disturbing.
• 2016-04-04 The Panama Papers could lead to Capitalism’s great crisis. Time Magazine.

Money

• 2016-10-14 The Day Has Arrived: As Of Today Prime Money Markets Can Suspend Withdrawals – Here Are The Implications (So if TSHTF, you can’t get any money out to buy stuff)
• 2016-04-06 Rotten to the core.  Think the $100,000 you have really exists?

Unemployment

2016-12-2 What ‘are so many of them doing?’ 95 million not in US labor force

Capital controls and the war on cash

• 2016-2-16 Larry Summers Launches The War On Paper Money: “It’s Time To Kill The $100 Bill”. 78% of currency in circulation are $100 bills. Bankers would like it to go away so that savers have to pay negative interest rates and pay the bank to have their savings there
• 2016-04-06 Governor of Puerto Rico set to impose Capital Controls
• 2016-04-09 War on cash escalates:  Japan starts testing fingerprints as “currency”
  

Negative interest rates

• 2016-04-07 Japan prints additional ¥10,000 Bills as People Scramble to Stash Away Cash
• 2016-03-15 Economics is like a religion – Just faith in theory

Helicopter money to keep economy going

2016-04-07 JPM, ECB Hint at Arrival of “Helicopter Money” in Europe Following Next “Significant Downturn”

Economists are idiots

The new astrology. By fetishizing mathematical models, economists turned economics into a highly paid pseudoscience

Defense Department

2015-04-21 F35, The jet that ate the pentagon ($1.5 trillion so far)

Pensions

• 2017-5-27 Global Pension Underfunding Will Hit Nearly Half A Quadrillion Dollars In 2050
• 2017-3-16 Are Collapsing Pensions “About To Bring Hell To America”?
• 2016-12-1 Stanford Study Reveals California Pensions Underfunded By $1 Trillion Or $93k Per Household
• 2016-9-20 Dallas Police Pension On Verge Of Collapse As Record Number Of Cops Seek Full Withdrawals
• 2016-8-20 The $6 trillion public pension hole that we’re all going to have to pay for. Why your state’s public pension plan is in a much bigger hole than you already fear
• 2016-4-10 US faces ‘disastrous’ $3.4tn pension funding hole
• 2016-4-6 The US government has a $20.4 trillion retirement problem
• 2016-3-30 Golden State Pension Deficit: $1.2 Trillion

China

China produces 99% of some of the rare earth metals essential for computers, cars, wind, solar, and electronic gadgets.  And cheap products that the U.S. and other nations depend on.  If their financial system crashes, it will take the world down with it.

• 2017-5-26 China’s reforms not enough to arrest mounting debt: Moody’s
• 2017-5-24 China’s Bill Will Have to Be Paid