Widespread Economic Slowdown Across Europe with Italy Heading to ‘Zero Growth’

vittorio emanuele monument rome © pexels.com

Eurozone’s third-largest economy, Italy, can’t afford fiscal expansion at a time when its economic growth is heading to zero, Economy Minister Giovanni Tria said. He ruled out any possible changes to the government’s budget.

Italy’s central bank and the International Monetary Fund both estimated the country’s economy would expand by 0.6 percent this year. The European Commission’s forecast was more pessimistic, at just 0.2 percent. It said Italy was facing excessive economic imbalances and the policies of its government were making matters worse, posing a threat to Eurozone partners.

“We face a widespread slowdown in growth across Europe, and in Italy we are headed for zero” growth, Tria said at a conference in Florence. “Certainly we don’t have the room for expansionary measures,” he added.

Rome targets a fiscal deficit of 2.04 percent of gross domestic product this year, while analysts say the figure may be higher. In the fourth quarter of 2018, Italy plunged into technical recession as the economy contracted. At the moment, public debt sits at €2.3 trillion (US$2.6 trillion), or 131 percent of Italy’s GDP, which is way above the 60 percent EU ceiling.

According to Tria, Italian manufacturing exports suffered as a consequence of the slowing German economy. Europe’s leading economy, Germany, is struggling due to significantly weaker demand for its exports.

Italy’s Eurosceptic coalition government of the 5-Star Movement and the League parties lowered the deficit target after a protracted tussle with the European Commission. Rome has been clashing with Brussels over its big-spending budget in the past few months.

Last Thursday, Claudio Borghi, a leading member of the League party, said the Italian government could steeply raise the deficit next year to avoid hiking value-added tax.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker on Monday mocked the country’s government coalition. Junker said Brussels had “foreseen” that Italy’s economic growth would not be as outstanding as announced, and that he “isn’t sure” the country will crawl out of the financial crisis it plunged into more than 10 years ago.

One wonders how much American sanctions are affecting Germany's exports? Perhaps it is time for the rest of the world to stop supporting the myriad sanctions with which America is bullying the rest of the world, most of which are for American economic gain, not political reasons.

Canada is suffering from the loss of billions of dollars in the canola market to China because we arrested Huawei's CFO for violating an American sanction. IMHO that was a huge mistake that should never have happened. 

The rest of the world needs to tell President Trump that American sanctions are America's problem, not a global problem. 

America - The World's Moral Force with a Distinctive Odour Problem

For a country that holds itself as Earth's moral police force, the USA, time and again, reveals itself as the enabler of war, very often supplying weapons to both sides of a conflict. The US exports more arms than the next four arms-exporting countries combined.

It's hard to find out what percentage of international exports American military equipment makes up. But the first four categories on the list could all consist largely of military equipment:

The following export product groups represent the highest dollar value in American global shipments during 2015. Also shown is the percentage share each export category represents in terms of overall exports from the United States.

Machines, engines, pumps: US$205.8 billion (13.7% of total exports)

Electronic equipment: $169.8 billion (11.3%)

Aircraft, spacecraft: $131.1 billion (8.7%)

Vehicles: $127.1 billion (8.4%)

Officially, US arms sales account for $40-50 billion per year. In 2016, the US supplied middle east countries with more than $33 billion in weapons. Many of them went to Saudi Arabia who are responsible for bombing market places and funerals in Yemen, killing hundreds of civilians. Some of them may end up in Saudi's other proxy war in Syria fighting against Hezbollah and its American weapons. 

Eventually, many of these weapons will be used against Israel - Hezbollah has long been an enemy of Israel; President Obama knew that when he supplied them with weapons in Lebanon. So, the point is, American weapons will be killing Israelis, America's ally, and will almost certainly end up killing Americans. But that's business, eh?

Hezbollah Shows off U.S. Armored Personnel Carriers; U.S. Wonders How They Got Them

Some initially thought the M113s had been stolen from the Lebanese military but U.S. officials say the vehicles shown in pictures are not the same model.

By Stephen Feller

QUSAYR, Syria, (UPI) -- The Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah showed off U.S.-made armored personnel carriers alongside Russian-made tanks in a military parade in Syria, but U.S. officials have no idea how they got them.

Images of the parade, held in Qusayr, Syria, are raising concern about terror groups in the Middle East using U.S. military armored personnel carriers distributed as part of aid to various nations in the region.

Some have suggested the vehicles were taken from the Lebanese Armed Forces, which the United States has been supporting in its battle against militant groups in Lebanon. Last summer, the United States gave the military about $50 million worth of equipment, including vehicles, grenade launchers and tons of ammunition.

The M113s pictured are outfitted with anti-aircraft guns known as ZPU-2s.

A U.S. State Department official told The Washington Post the vehicles in the photos are "unlikely" to have come from the Lebanese military, and Pentagon spokesman Chris Sherwood said, "The structural analysis of the vehicles in the picture" does not match those provided to Lebanon.

The M113 armored personnel carrier, or APC, is a tracked vehicle used to transport personnel and supplies while providing them protection against small arms and light weapons. They can be outfitted with a variety of light to medium weapons. It has been used in every major U.S. military conflict since the Vietnam War. The vehicles have been given or sold to other countries around the world as part of aid packages. They are also being used by many police departments in the United States.

U.S. officials say the M113 model Hezbollah has may have come from the Southern Lebanese Army, which Israel supplied with military equipment -- including 20 M113s -- from 1984 until 1996. Hezbollah may also have taken them from the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, which also obtained them from a source not yet identified by U.S. officials..

Is The Global Economy Imploding?

21 New Numbers That Show That The Global Economy Is Absolutely Imploding

By Michael Snyder

Earth At Night - Public Domain

After a series of stunning declines through the month of January and the first half of February, global financial markets seem to have found a patch of relative stability at least for the moment.  But that does not mean that the crisis is over.  On the contrary, all of the hard economic numbers that are coming in from around the world tell us that the global economy is coming apart at the seams.  This is especially true when you look at global trade numbers.

The amount of stuff that is being bought, sold and shipped around the planet is falling precipitously. So don’t be fooled if stocks go up one day or down the next.  The truth is that we are in the early chapters of a brand new economic meltdown, and I believe that all of the signs indicate that it will continue to get worse in the months ahead.  The following are 21 new numbers that show that the global economy is absolutely imploding…

#1 Chinese exports fell by 11.2 percent year over year in January.

#2 Chinese imports were even worse in January.  On a year over year basis, they declined a whopping 18.8 percent.

#3 It may be hard to believe, but Chinese imports have now plunged for 15 months in a row.

#4 In India, exports were down 13.6 percent on a year over year basis in January.

#5 In Japan, exports declined 8 percent in December on a year over year basis, while imports plummeted 18 percent.

#6 For the sixth time in six years, Japanese GDP growth has gone negative.

#7 In the United States, exports were down 7 percent on a year over year basis in December.

#8 U.S. factory orders have fallen for 14 months in a row.

#9 The Restaurant Performance Index in the United States has dropped to the lowest level that we have seen since 2008.

#10 This month the Baltic Dry Index fell below 300 for the first time ever.

#11 It is now cheaper to rent a 1,100 foot merchant vessel than it is to rent a Ferrari.

#12 Orders for Class 8 trucks in the United States dropped by 48 percent on a year over year basis in January.

#13 Due to a lack of demand for trucks, Daimler just laid off 1,250 U.S. workers.

#14 Even though Saudi Arabia and Russia have agreed to freeze oil production at current levels, the price of U.S. oil has still fallen below 30 dollars a barrel.

#15 It is being reported that 35 percent of all oil and gas companies around the world are at risk of falling into bankruptcy.

#16 According to CNN, 67 oil and gas companies in the United States filed for bankruptcy during 2015.

#17 The number of job cuts in the United States skyrocketed 218 percent during the month of January according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

#18 All over America, retail stores are shutting down at a stunning pace.  The following list of store closures comes from one of my previous articles…

-Wal-Mart is closing 269 stores, including 154 inside the United States.

-K-Mart is closing down more than two dozen stores over the next several months.

-J.C. Penney will be permanently shutting down 47 more stores after closing a total of 40 stores in 2015.

-Macy’s has decided that it needs to shutter 36 stores and lay off approximately 2,500 employees.

-The Gap is in the process of closing 175 stores in North America.

-Aeropostale is in the process of closing 84 stores all across America.

-Finish Line has announced that 150 stores will be shutting down over the next few years.

-Sears has shut down about 600 stores over the past year or so, but sales at the stores that remain open continue to fall precipitously.

#19 The price of gold is enjoying its best quarterly performance in 30 years.

#20 Global stocks have fallen into bear market territory, which means that about one-fifth of all global stock market wealth has already been wiped out.

#21 Unfortunately for global central banks, they have pretty much run out of ammunition.  Since March 2008, central banks have cut interest rates 637 times and they have purchased a staggering 12.3 trillion dollars worth of assets.  There is not much more that they can do, and now the next great crisis is upon us.

Without any outside influences, the global economy and the global financial system will continue to rapidly fall apart.

But if we do have a major “black swan event” take place, that could cause the bottom to fall out at any moment.

In particular, I am deeply concerned about the possibility that World War III could be sparked in the Middle East.  In an article that I published earlier today entitled “Turkey Is Asking The United States To Take Part In A Ground Invasion Of Syria“, I included a quote from Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu that reveals just how eager Turkey and Saudi Arabia are for war to begin…

“Some countries like us, Saudi Arabia and some other Western European countries have said that a ground operation is necessary,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told Reuters in an interview.

However, this kind of action could not be left to regional powers alone. “To expect this only from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar is neither right nor realistic. If such an operation is to take place, it has to be carried out jointly, like the (coalition) air strikes,” he said.

The Turks and the Saudis very much want the United States to take a leading role in any ground invasion of Syria, but the Obama administration is not likely to do that.

So we shall see if the Turks and the Saudis are willing to go ahead without us.  Let us hope that they do not decide to invade Syria, because that could start the biggest war in the Middle East that any of us have ever seen.

Unfortunately, Turkey is already attacking.

Turkey has been shelling Kurdish and Syrian military positions in northern Syria for four days in a row even though the Obama administration has been urging them to stop.

The first month and a half of 2016 has already been quite chaotic, and the stage is set for global events to greatly accelerate during the months ahead.

Sadly, the mainstream media in the United States is largely ignoring the preparations for a ground invasion of Syria, and they keep telling us that the global economy is going to be just fine, so most ordinary Americans are going to be absolutely blindsided by what is about to happen.

With the last serious economic crash there were several large economies that were still strong and growing - China, India, Brazil. These countries helped pull the rest of the world out of recession. This year, one is hard-pressed to find any countries with strong, growing economies. There is no-one to throw a life-line. Even the Gulf States are suffering from low oil prices. 

Americans have printed money with shameful abandon and borrowed excessively since 2008 raising their debt to GDP ratio to serious levels. With China working hard to replace the dollar with the yuan as global currency, the American greenback may collapse precipitously. 

2016 should be a very interesting, if not frightening year. There is a lot more going on than just the primaries.