U.S. headed for 'Great Collapse'?
Obama administration repeats Carter's 1970s 'stagflation'
By Dr. Jerome Corsi, Red Alert
March 21, 2011
Economist John Williams of "Shadow Government Statistics" is predicting the U.S. economic solvency crises of the last two years are just precursors to a great collapse: a Hyperinflationary Great Depression.
Williams feels the outside timing on the hyperinflation remains 2014, although there are strong indications the collapse has already begun.
He lists the following as factors contributing to the coming economic crisis:
* The Federal Reserve moving to monetize U.S. Treasury debt with its current policy of Quantitative Easing 2, or QE2, aimed at buying another $600 billion in Treasury debt;
* The U.S. dollar losing its traditional safe-haven status, while losing its reserve status, as the world moves to a new global reserve currency, most likely in the form of International Monetary Fund use of Special Drawing Rights;
* The federal government moving into what is effectively long-term insolvency, with GAAP-based (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices) showing total federal obligations at $76 trillion – more than five-times the level of U.S. GDP by the end of 2010;
* The weakness of political will in Washington, with Congress being unable to cut funding as severely as needed, especially when it come to the necessary slashing of unfunded liabilities in government social programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
Williams' Hyperinflation Special Report (2011) warns the United States is about to experience once again the "stagflation" combination of low economic growth plus high inflation and high interest rates that came to characterize the presidency of Jimmy Carter in the late-1970s, but on a scale magnified many times over.
How much money will the Obama administration print?
With the Obama administration about to incur its third trillion-dollar-plus federal budget deficit, the question is: How much money will the Obama administration print?
"Bankrupt governments – unable to raise adequate cash to cover obligations – invariably crank up the currency printing presses to do so, creating a hyperinflation," Williams wrote.
Williams contends that the Obama administration will print whatever amount of currency is needed to prevent an immediate systemic economic collapse, even if the inevitable consequences are the debasement of the dollar and the increasing of domestic inflation.
"The deliberate monetary and fiscal abuses have resulted in de-stabilizing selling pressures against the U.S. currency, in rising gold and silver prices, and in a nascent pickup in reported U.S. consumer inflation," he observed. "That inflation has been driven by unhealthy monetary policy instead of healthy economic demand, and it should continue to increase in the months ahead."
He noted that major powers such as China, Russia and France, as well as international monetary institutions such as the IMF, have called for the abandonment of the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency.
'Economy is not in recovery'
Williams also directly counters the conventional wisdom that the U.S. economy is in recovery from the 2007 recession.
"Despite pronouncements of an end to the 2007 recession and the onset of an economic recovery, the U.S. economy still is mired in a deepening structural contraction, which eventually be recognized as a double- or multiple-dip recession," he wrote.
Williams predicts that QE2 will likely be expanded or supplemented by a QE3, as the Fed finds no other buyers for Treasury debt at an affordable price.
"Looming with uncertain timing is a panicked dollar dumping and dumping of dollar-denominated paper assets, which remains the most likely event as proximal trigger for the onset of hyperinflation in the near-term," Williams warns.
Williams advises that physical gold (sovereign coins priced near bullion prices) remains the primary hedge in terms of preserving the purchasing power of current dollars. He also favors investments in silver and hedges in stronger major currencies, such as the Swiss franc and the Australian dollar.
"In terms of survival on a day-to-day basis, U.S.-based individuals should be building a store of goods in preparation for a manmade disaster, much as they would for a natural disaster such as an earthquake," he concludes. "Economic activity probably would devolve to a barter system, but such could take months to become fully functional."
