Economic Tsunami

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1456691,00.html

First, the UK:

Ashley Seager, in the Guardian 11 April 05, points out that in the UK:

Consumer spending is slumping
the housing market is fragile
oil prices are at a record high
tax rises looking increasingly necessary.

Car sales were down 15% in the first quarter of this year from a year earlier.
Mortgage lending has tumbled more than 30% .
The consumer is weighed down by £1 trillion of debt.

Take-home pay stopped growing two years ago.

There have been successive large council tax rises and increases in electricity and gas bills.

Second, the USA:

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney04082005.html

MIKE WHITNEY, in counterpunch, has recently written about the coming Economic Tsunami

"If the world's central bankers accumulate fewer dollars, the result would be an unrelenting American need to borrow in the face of an ever weaker dollar - a recipe for higher interest rates and higher prices. The economic repercussions could unfold gradually, resulting in a long, slow decline in living standards. Or there could be a quick unraveling, with the hallmarks of an uncontrolled fiscal crisis."
New York Times editorial 4-2-05

According to Whitney, "the economic tsunami planned by the Bush administration is probably only months away."

In just 5 years the national debt has increased by nearly 3 trillion dollars.
The dollar has fallen 38% since Bush took office.

Laws have been passed (Patriot Act, Intelligence Reform Bill, Homeland Security Bill, National ID, Passport requirements etc) which can be used to control people 'when the economy takes its inevitable nosedive'.

Acording to Whitney, Iran is to bombed in June, and this is an added complication.

Whitnet argues that the USA has been intentionally plundered and will eventually wind up in the hands of its creditors.

This same scheme has been carried out repeatedly by the IMF and World Bank throughout the world; Argentina being the last example.

Bankruptcy will allow public assets and resources to be handed over to financial elites /cronies.

Whitney points out that Paul Wolfowitz of the World Bank may supervise the process.

Middle class Americans will face:
tax reform,
fiscal discipline,
deregulation,
free capital flows,
lowered tariffs,
reduced public services,
and privatization.

Whitney argues the USA will become a society entirely designed to service the needs of corporations.

Whitney writes that if the major oil producers convert from the dollar to the euro, "the American economy will sink almost overnight.

"If oil is traded in euros then central banks around the world would be compelled to follow and America will be required to pay off its enormous $8 trillion debt.

"That, of course, would be doomsday for the American economy."

But, a recent report indicates that two-thirds of the world's 65 central banks have already "begun to move from dollars to euros."

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Quote from:

http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2005/04/obviously-iranian-supported-terrorists.html

"When the time comes for the next attack - and as I've said before I think it will be Syria and Lebanon rather than Iran - there will be a 'terrorist' attack against a top American official - probably someone without the requisite subservient attitude towards Israel - which will immediately be blamed by the Bush Administration on "(obviously) Iranian-supported terrorists" (substitute 'Syrian-supported' if the neocon plan is to go after Syria). Of course, the attack could also be against Americans generally, following the model of September 11. In any event, it is impossible to conceive that it would be politically possible for Bush to set out on another illegal attack without opening another can of whoop ass on the American people. Sadly, another quick 'terrorist' attack, with an equally quick FBI report that it was the work of (obviously) Iranian-supported terrorists, would work just as well as September 11 worked (September 11 as Pearl, or Perle, Harbor), and anyone who questions the obviousness of it will be labeled a crazy conspiracy theorist."