by SodaHead News Posted 3 hours ago
It’s an enduring cliché of disaster movies: the lone, crazy ranting man with the long white beard wearing a sandwich board announcing, “The end is nigh!”
From Nostradamus to Jim Jones’ People’s temple to the Branch Davidians and the Heaven’s Gate clan, doomsday Chicken Littles have been predicting the end of time for, well, as long as there has been time.
But according to a recent report in the AFP, renowned economists are getting in on the action now, saying that the impending collapse of the world’s economy could send us all swirling down the celestial drain.
Vaunted economist Nouriel Roubini recently told an economic forum in Italy that the chaos created by the subprime mortgage lending meltdown, the collapse of the housing bubble, out of control deficit spending and high unemployment are pushing America to the brink of potential catastrophe.
"The U.S. has run out of bullets," Roubini said. "Any shock at this point can tip you back into recession."
And Roubini is not alone. Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff, who was sounding the alarm about public deficit more than three decades ago, told an International Monetary Fund publication last week that the end might actually be nigh this time … for real.
Kotlikoff put together his own end-of-times scenario in which an economic battle between the U.S. and China – which holds more than $843 billion in U.S. treasury bonds – could wipe America off the map.
"A minor trade dispute between the United States and China could make some people think that other people are going to sell U.S. treasury bonds," he wrote. "That belief, coupled with major concern about inflation, could lead to a sell-off of government bonds that causes the public to withdraw their bank deposits and buy durable goods."
While other experts have called Kotlikoff’s scenario far-fetched, he said if it came to fruition there could be a run on banks and insurance policies that would tip the economic system into chaos. "In a short period of time, the Federal Reserve would have to print trillions of dollars to cover its explicit and implicit guarantees. All that new money could produce strong inflation, perhaps hyperinflation," he said. "There are other less apocalyptic, perhaps more plausible, but still quite unpleasant, scenarios that could result from multiple equilibria."
The StrategyOne Institute published a poll on Friday in which 65 percent of Americans said they believe there will be a new recession and another recent poll from The Wall Street Journal and NBC showed that more than half of Americans believe our economic problems are structural, not just cyclical.
Do You Believe These Economic Doomsayers?
.
.
Source: http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/is-the-apocalypse-really-around-the-corner/question-1222177/
.
It’s an enduring cliché of disaster movies: the lone, crazy ranting man with the long white beard wearing a sandwich board announcing, “The end is nigh!”
From Nostradamus to Jim Jones’ People’s temple to the Branch Davidians and the Heaven’s Gate clan, doomsday Chicken Littles have been predicting the end of time for, well, as long as there has been time.
But according to a recent report in the AFP, renowned economists are getting in on the action now, saying that the impending collapse of the world’s economy could send us all swirling down the celestial drain.
Vaunted economist Nouriel Roubini recently told an economic forum in Italy that the chaos created by the subprime mortgage lending meltdown, the collapse of the housing bubble, out of control deficit spending and high unemployment are pushing America to the brink of potential catastrophe.
"The U.S. has run out of bullets," Roubini said. "Any shock at this point can tip you back into recession."
And Roubini is not alone. Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff, who was sounding the alarm about public deficit more than three decades ago, told an International Monetary Fund publication last week that the end might actually be nigh this time … for real.
Kotlikoff put together his own end-of-times scenario in which an economic battle between the U.S. and China – which holds more than $843 billion in U.S. treasury bonds – could wipe America off the map.
"A minor trade dispute between the United States and China could make some people think that other people are going to sell U.S. treasury bonds," he wrote. "That belief, coupled with major concern about inflation, could lead to a sell-off of government bonds that causes the public to withdraw their bank deposits and buy durable goods."
While other experts have called Kotlikoff’s scenario far-fetched, he said if it came to fruition there could be a run on banks and insurance policies that would tip the economic system into chaos. "In a short period of time, the Federal Reserve would have to print trillions of dollars to cover its explicit and implicit guarantees. All that new money could produce strong inflation, perhaps hyperinflation," he said. "There are other less apocalyptic, perhaps more plausible, but still quite unpleasant, scenarios that could result from multiple equilibria."
The StrategyOne Institute published a poll on Friday in which 65 percent of Americans said they believe there will be a new recession and another recent poll from The Wall Street Journal and NBC showed that more than half of Americans believe our economic problems are structural, not just cyclical.
Do You Believe These Economic Doomsayers?
.
.
Source: http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/is-the-apocalypse-really-around-the-corner/question-1222177/
.
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