Financial collapse. Financial collapse against nuclear Pearl Harbor

If the former Reagan administration official is correct in his predictions, then we are likely to see the next massive financial collapse before the end of 2017. According to Wikipedia, David Stockman is "an author, retired businessman, American politician who was the Michigan Republican House of Representatives (1977-1981), and Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan (1981-1985)." He is interviewed frequently by mainstream news outlets such as CNBC, Bloomberg and PBS. His opinion is very authoritative in the financial community. Like other analysts, Stockman believes the US economy is in very bad shape, and he told Greg Hunter in an interview that he believes the S&P 500 could soon collapse "40% or more."

The market turned out to be overvalued. This is crazy ... I believe the market could easily fall to the 1,600 or 1,300 mark. It could lose 40% once the fantasies are over. Soon, the government will appear in all its glory, staging a massacre over the budget. And then these crazy ideas about the possibility of implementing Trump's stimulus program will be buried once and for all. I'm talking about the fact that these incentives will not exist. They will not be able to pass through Congress a budget resolution with tax breaks when the budget already has a $ 10 trillion increase in debt burden. or $ 15 trillion. in the next ten years. It just won't go to Congress ... I believe we are witnessing the greatest rally of fools we have ever seen.

But even more worrisome is Stockman's words about the potential timing of such a financial crash. According to him, if he had to choose the date of the next large-scale collapse in the stock market, he would “focus on the period between August and November” ...

We are heading towards an unexpected crisis, and the S&P 500 will drop many hundreds of points at some point over the next few months ... I would focus on the period between August and November, because this is when the debt ceiling problem reaches its climax , and the government will be left without a cache. Washington will plunge into a fierce political conflict over the prospects for a debt ceiling ... This will be a gigantic budget carnage that we have never seen before.

Without a doubt, the US financial system lives on borrowed time, and we cannot increase the amount of debt indefinitely. In 2017, interest on government debt service will surpass the half-trillion dollars mark for the first time, and this figure will increase even more next year, because we will probably add at least another trillion dollars to the existing debt.

Meanwhile, financial markets are getting more and more absurd every day.

Look at Tesla. This company mysteriously managed to lose $ 620 million in the first quarter of 2017, and it consistently loses hundreds of millions of dollars quarter after quarter.

However, the market value of this company is an incredible $ 48 billion.

It feels like we live in a world turned inside out, in which the more money a company loses, the more valuable it becomes in the eyes of investors. Corporations like Tesla, Netflix and Twitter are burning gigantic amounts of investor money with no profit, but nobody seems to care.

Commercial real estate-backed mortgage-backed securities are another red flag that is starting to draw scrutiny ...

According to the Commercial Mortgage Alert, the percentage of bad (loans in special servicing) mortgage securities secured by commercial real estate (MBS) reached 6.6% at the end of April. The growth of this indicator by 5 basis points relative to the end of March was the result of an increase in the volume of securities - secured by commercial real estate and rated by Fitch, on which the delay was recorded - by 9 basis points to 3.5% at the end of April.

Both MBS and CMBS delinquencies hit their highest levels since 2015.

During the 2008 crisis, residential real estate securities played a major role, and this time around, it looks like commercial real estate securities may well wreak havoc in financial markets.

One of the reasons why all this is happening is due to the enormous difficulties faced by the owners of the malls. The 2017 retail store closure rate promises to break the previous record by 20%, and Bloomberg predicts that the billion square feet of retail store space will eventually cease to function or be converted to other uses.

Needless to say, what is happening in retail puts enormous pressure on the owners of retail space, whose debts are beginning to deteriorate quickly.

In 2007 and early 2008, many analysts warned that mortgage-backed securities could cause a stock market crash and the ensuing inevitable recession. But these analysts were the objects of ridicule. People incessantly asked them when the "crisis" would finally happen, while the Federal Reserve Chairman reassured the public with assurances that there would be no recession in the United States.

But then fall 2008 came and everything went to hell. Investors suddenly lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs evaporated as if they never existed, and the American economy plunged into its worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

And now we have come close to an even more terrible catastrophe. The US national debt has nearly doubled since the last crisis, corporate debt has more than doubled, and all long-term economic fundamentals continue to deteriorate.

The only thing that saves us is the opportunity to increase our already exorbitant debt, but once this bubble bursts, we will see the largest adjustment in the standards of living of citizens in American history.

It is not known whether Stockman will be right in choosing the timing or not, but this is not so important.

Much more important is the fact that decades of extremely stupid decisions have made the greatest economic crisis in US history inevitable, and when it fully reveals itself, the human suffering that will accompany the development of this crisis will be truly unprecedented.

The situation in the world economy and the world of finance only at first glance seems stable, but in fact, almost all conditions have been created for a new financial collapse.

It is worth starting with Japan, the country with the largest debt burden, which, however, does not prevent investors from seeing it as a safe haven and even giving money to the Japanese government for free. Most recently, Japan placed two-year bonds worth $ 4 billion, the yield was at an all-time low - minus 0.149%. It is important to note that the demand amounted to almost $ 20 billion, that is, it exceeded supply several times; moreover, the supply / demand ratio at this auction was higher than the average at the last 12 auctions: 4.97 versus 4.75.

We add that the yield on Japan's ten-year bonds is now at minus 0.001%.

Negative yields are a reflection of the fact that investors do not expect the largest central banks to end the monetary tsunami that hit the world after the 2008 financial crisis.And although representatives of the Central Bank periodically talk about their desire to normalize their policies, no one really believes in this, and the asset bubble continues puff up, undermining the financial system.

In addition, many experts are confident that the actions of the monetary authorities have created all the conditions for this.

Globally, the volume of government debt with negative returns is approximately $ 9 trillion. The yield on 85% of government bonds is less than the value of global inflation, and investment income on them can be positive only if the value continues to rise and exchange rates move in line with the forecasts of these same investors.

in more detail

Against the background of the abundance of extremely cheap liquidity, the understanding of investment risks has completely distorted. Earlier, "Vesti. Economics" already reported that, for example, the yields of junk bonds of European companies at the moment were falling below the yields of American Treasuries.

B&N Bank voluntarily turned to the state with a request for readjustment, without waiting for the harsh verdict of the regulators. One of the reasons for the appeal was the reduction in deposits by 20 billion rubles. in just a month.

Such imbalances pose serious risks to financial institutions, in particular insurance companies, pension funds and banks. It is the wrong perception of risks that leads to the wrong investment decisions with all the ensuing consequences. Moreover, regulations require financial companies to hold a significant portion of their assets in "safe" or "high quality" instruments, that is, in asset classes, however, as we said, security and reliability are controversial concepts.

It is also worth noting that investments of pension funds in bonds with zero or negative yields bring a minimum cash flow, while in order to fulfill their obligations, they must have an annual yield of 7-8%. As a result, the deficit is growing. Milliman said that on average for the period 2012-2016. US pension funds allocated 27-30% of their assets in cash (3-4%) and bonds (23-27%), generating a total return of about 1.31% per annum.

Since this is not enough, pension and other funds are increasingly investing in riskier assets in order to generate more returns, although even then the level of risk is difficult to determine. Blackrock estimates that, as a result, half of all major insurance companies operating in the American market now carry more risk on their balance sheets than before 2007. A Milliman report released in 2016 showed that among pension funds the share assets invested in stocks and real estate increased from 19% in 2012 to 24% in 2016.

In other words, all the years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, pension funds, insurance companies and other long-term investment companies have loaded their balance sheets with extremely risky assets and reached the maximum in history.

Another risk is borne by the central banks themselves. The fact is that the largest central banks continue to hold on their balance sheets large volumes of the most reliable bonds. As of August 1, 2017, the Fed, Bank of Japan, and ECB had assets of $ 13.8 trillion, with both the Bank of Japan ($ 4.75 trillion) and ECB assets ($ 5.1 trillion) exceeding those of the Federal Reserve ($ 4 , 3 trillion) for the third month in a row.

The maturity calendar of bonds only exacerbates the risks of financial contamination from tightening monetary policy in the balance sheets of insurance companies and pension funds. In the case of the United States, according to information from PIMCO, the peak maturity of bonds, agency debt and TIPS held by the Federal Reserve falls between the first quarter of 2018 and the third quarter of 2020. insurers and pension funds will be in 2020-2022.

If the Fed simply stops replenishing maturing bonds - the most likely scenario for QE to wind down - the market is unlikely to be able to support the prices of assets that dominate the capital base of large financial institutions. Prices will fall, asset values will fall, and these financial institutions will feel the need for new capital. A similar situation is developing in the UK and Canada, but the risks are even more pronounced in the euro area, where QE began later (in the II quarter of 2015, as opposed to the United States, where it started in the first quarter of 2013). It should be noted that the ECB's interventions turned out to be more aggressive than those of the Federal Reserve.

More details:

http://www.vestifinance.ru/articles/94076

European Commissioner for Human Rights Emily O'Reilly, in an interview with European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi, advised him to stop further participation in the Group of Thirty (G30) - the club of the world's most influential bankers.

In the corresponding material of the London-based The Guardian, the publication of which was reflected in the Russian media, the group was called a "secret club of corporate bankers" influencing big politics. It is reported that Draghi took note of the ombudsman's demarche and promised to answer it.

Mario Draghi

Of course, it will take a long time for an answer, if it comes at all. Such a sensitive nerve of the global oligarchic, purely shadow, politics has been affected that it is time to calculate the far from obvious reasons and consequences of this information emergency.

On the one hand, The Guardian went overboard, of course. The existence of the G30 is no secret; she even has her own website. On the other hand, the group is really not advertised, especially in the media. Why?

Let us compare the goals and objectives of the activities that the G-30 officially declares and the results of the investigation carried out by the Corporate European Observer NGO (CEN), the organization that, in fact, provided E. O'Reilly with the necessary materials and conclusions that form the basis her conversation with Mario Draghi.

(Let's make a reservation that the Russian abbreviation KEN was chosen by the author due to the fact that the English CEO - Corporate Europe Observatory - introduces confusion, because CEO in business slang means the corporate position of the executive director or managing director).

So, officially, "The goal of the G30 is to deepen understanding of international economic and financial issues, as well as to study the international consequences of decisions made in the public and private sectors ..." - this is from the website of the G30.

But the opinion of KEN analysts, who have been observing Draghi's activities since 2012 and have repeatedly entered into correspondence with the ECB, receiving no reaction to their appeals, before they launched the "heavy artillery" of the officialdom from the European civil society. The main message: "Over the past two decades, the G30 has acted as an effective lobbying vehicle for large private banks."

And a more detailed explanation of this thesis: “The guiding principles of the G30 have historically been the introduction of deregulation and self-regulation of the financial sector. She has made significant progress in developing international norms in this direction, defending the interests of Wall Street and the largest European investment funds and banks by removing obstacles to financial flows and investments ...

The group is indeed run by important figures from the private financial sector, including the Wall Street bankers from J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, but many of its members are closely associated with central banks ...

Since the founding of the G30 in 1978, the leaders of some of the largest private banks have been able to negotiate closely with important central banks, often in strict confidentiality. They used public figures to promote the group as a think tank rather than a lobbying structure. However, the presence of central banks only serves to enhance the effectiveness of corporate lobbying.

The G30 has worked systematically for more than two decades to enact rules that allow banks, by promoting their own interests with the help of regulators, to remain in the shadows. On two occasions ... it led to disaster. The G30's success in regulating complex financial instruments (derivatives) and banking regulation led to the creation of international rules that opened the way for the 2008 financial crisis. ”

“Behind the verbal husk of PR information,” the renowned economist Valentin Katasonov agrees with KEN in an article with the self-explanatory title “G30: the power that controls the entire financial world”, “it is seen that the group is formulating recommendations for central banks and leading world banks. The participants of the meetings further participate in the implementation of the adopted recommendations, using their administrative capabilities, connections and influence. "

Let's figure it out. The main thing that follows from the above quotes and what unites them, regardless of the positive or negative in assessing the activities of the G30, is the statement that in it representatives of private oligarchic banks are not just adjacent, but intertwined with central banks.

It seems to be state-owned, although this is only an appearance: market dogmas require the "independence" of central banks, which "should not" obey their own governments.

This raises two questions. First: why is a structure being created that turns central banks into "states within a state", where did it come from?

The same V. Katasonov in the most interesting book “Capitalism. The history and ideology of the monetary civilization ”(M., 2013) notes that it was the formation of the system of central banks of the leading countries - England, France, Germany, and at the beginning of the 20th century and the United States - that served as the prologue to the replacement of state orders with the“ order of money ”.

This is how he describes this process in England, launched after the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688-1689 and the accession on the banks of the Thames by William III of Orange, a representative of the Dutch, with Jewish roots, the Orange-Nassau dynasty.

“... On behalf of and on behalf of a group of usurers, the negotiations with the new king were conducted by a well-known swindler William Patterson ...

They demanded from Wilhelm: first, to agree to the creation of a special bank, which would be the monopoly issuer of paper money circulating throughout the country; secondly, this bank was to become the exclusive creditor of the government, issuing loans to it at 8% per annum in exchange for government IOUs (bonds); thirdly, to allow the bank to partially reserve its obligations, that is, in fact, to allow making money "out of thin air"; fourth, it was proposed to make the main "reserve" of the bank not gold, but government promissory notes; at the expense of the latter, lending to the government should be fully ensured, as well as the issuance of other loans.

In fact, W. Patterson's "project" contained all the basic elements of a modern mechanism for the emission of money by central banks of developed countries ... Loans to the government were paid off at the expense of taxes. This system suited both moneylenders - shareholders of the Bank of England and government officials, since they received access to a permanent source of credit.

Under such a system, the profits of the Bank of England shareholders and government debt grew rapidly. The system gave rise to boundless corruption, contributed to the fusion of the financial power of usurers and the "administrative resource" of government officials "(pp. 594-595).

And further: “Among the founding shareholders were the king and queen, who made the first contribution of £ 10,000. Then another 633 people contributed more than £ 500, which gave them the right to vote at shareholder meetings.

In 1946, that is, two and a half centuries after its creation, the Bank of England was nationalized by the Labor government (by the way, the list of shareholders is still classified). ... However, even today it is de facto controlled not by the government, but by the private banks of the City of London: the Bank of England, as it was, and continues to be a private bank, implementing the interests of a specific, very narrow group of individuals ”(Ibid .: 597).

The answer to the first of our questions, including about the true role of the City of London, can be supplemented with the help of a book by the historian and political scientist Olga Chetverikova “The Shadow History of the European Union. Plans, mechanisms, results ”. In the historical annals there is also information confirmed by a British court about a scam, with the help of which the Bank of England came under the control of the Rothschilds in 1815. And also information about the modern partners of this clan, who controlled the Bank of England after nationalization.

This is the Keswick family, closely related to the Sutherlands and, through them, to the "conquistadors" of the Opium Wars in China, the founders of Jardine & Matheson Holdings, which is directly related to the Rothschild business in the United States and to the "colonial" banks created by the British in Hong Kong, Shanghai, as well as in southern Africa - Hong Kong & Shanhai Banking Corporation (HSBC) and Standard Chartered.

And American researchers Robert Kirby and Eustace Mullins back in the 70s of the last century established and published the list of shareholders of the Federal Reserve System (FRS), also secret, from which it follows that the Bank of England was and remains in leading positions.

All this information will be incomplete, if not to mention the epic company Kuhn, Loeb & Co (Schiff and Warburgs), which had a hand in many events of the XX century, including in Russia, but first of all - in the creation of the FRS. And also about where its ends were hidden.

Meanwhile, in 1977, Kuhn, Loeb & Co was taken over by Lehman Brothers, which, in turn, went bankrupt in 2008, and its assets in the United States, inherited from the Schiff and the Warburgs, as a result of various machinations ended up in the hands of the current global British Bank Barclays. Bankers know how to keep and cover up the traces of their secrets.

Returning to the G30, let us ask the second question: if central banks are "independent" of their governments, then on whom do they depend? The popular thesis “from no one” is bullshit, because, as you know from the bearded anecdote, “the most independent is the one who does not know who depends on”. But the bankers know very well who they depend on. From whom? Now is the time to analyze the composition of the G30, published by its website. And pay special attention to the following issues:

the ratio and level of interweaving of private and central bank representations;
the influence of leading private banks and financial corporations, both those listed in the document of the KEN organization (primarily J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs), and others that remained outside its attention, but nevertheless have super-influential (for example, BlackRock);
the share of the Bank of England and the FRS in the top-30;
finally, the main thing: the involvement of the group members in the activities of international financial institutions - the IMF, the World Bank, as well as the BIS - Bank for International Settlements (BIS - Bank for International Settlements) and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the Financial Stability Council (Financial Stability Board - FSB), which formally belongs to the "Group of Twenty" (G20), but in fact - to the BIS.

Let us not forget that the IMF and the World Bank Group have a surplus quota in the G20, positions numbered 21 and 22. The core of this group is closely connected with the founders and shareholders of the Bank for International Settlements.

It turns out that a kind of "world central bank" is constructed, in which the IMF and the World Bank play the role of visible links, and the real center is concentrated in the BIS, which with their help controls the G20, which has officially made an application for the role of "world economic government". If we remember that in the UN the IMF and the World Bank are in a special position and are included in its structure, then the questions of who controls the world order disappear by themselves.

And the regular attacks on the veto right of the permanent members of the Security Council become understandable, which is the only thing that keeps the UN from becoming a de facto "world political government."

But let us return to the four identified questions and try to answer them. Biographies of group members from the G30 website to help us; in addition, since most of the people gathered there are famous, it is not difficult to find additional information on them.

So, ten of the 33 members of the group in their background have jobs in both private and central banks. These are Jacob Fraenkel, Paul Walker, Mark Carney, Domingo Cavallo, "our hero" Mario Draghi, Timothy Geithner, Philip Hildebrant, Gerhard Hessler, Maria Ramos, Axel Weber. Plus Lawrence Summers, who added his closeness to a whole constellation of oligarchic "offices" with work in the American National Economic Council (NEC), which, functioning under the White House, legalizes oligarchic influence on US domestic and foreign policy.

Combining the first question with the third, we note that the representation of the Bank of England, the FRS and the banks that make up its structure (mainly the New York FRB) is unprecedented. We list: Paul Walker, Ben Bernanke, Mark Carney, Mervyn King, Roger Fergusson, Timothy Geithner, Kevin Worsh, and, at the consultant level, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman and economist Kenneth Rogoff.

Let's digress for exactly a second, which is enough for us to remember two things. First, about the correspondence with the guidelines for conducting a monetarist domestic Russian policy between Summers and Anatoly Chubais.

And secondly, about the attempt to introduce into the Russian socio-economic context the creator of the Argentine economic and financial catastrophe, Domingo Cavallo, which was undertaken against the background of the failed “second coming” to power of Viktor Chernomyrdin by his Deputy Prime Minister Boris Fedorov after the default in August 1998. God had mercy! It was carried over then.

Eleven, or exactly one third of the G-30's members, are associated with the leading oligarchic banks and financial corporations on Wall Street and Europe. But as for international financial institutions, the connection with them is as follows.

Nine members of the G30 worked in the IMF, three in the structures of the World Bank group. As expected, the Bank for International Settlements has the largest representation here - twelve. In total, this is almost everything; moreover, we did not take into account the structures of the European Central Bank, which also have a reliable representation in the G30.

In the "thirty" and the current CEO of the BIS, Augustine Carstens, and his predecessor and head of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, Jim Caruana, and the recent chairman of the board of directors Christian Neuer, and his "vice" Masaaki Shirakawa, and other "ordinary" members of the FSB, combining membership in it and in the "thirty".

It should be reminded that it is the BIS that performs the function of the “central bank of central banks”, gathering every two months for meetings in Basel the members of the Basel Committee, that is, the heads of the central banks of the participating countries. That is, in fact, everyone except North Korea and ... the Vatican (yes, the Holy See “the law is not written”, perhaps because he himself participates in its writing?).

And now what do we get - purely arithmetically? In the BIS there are all central banks, in the “thirty” there are influential people from central banks who, firstly, largely combine their interests with private banking empires, and secondly, with international financial institutions. Doing this under the de facto control of such "gurus" of the Anglo-Saxon financial world, such as the ex- and current governors of the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve.

It turns out a kind of octopus with a whole bunch of tentacles, the body of which, therefore, is the "Group of Thirty", and its core is the Anglo-Saxon bankers. We have proved this on statistical material, although by analyzing biographies, which contain a lot of interesting things, one can come to the same conclusion by the methods of purely political analysis.

After all, it is in the "thirty" that all the main influence in the world banking community is summed up, and it is from it that the "leading" impulses are conveyed to the "ordinary" members of the Basel Committee, those heads of central banks who, together with "their" countries, are not among the "celestials" ...

In other words, if in the aggregate the BIS, the IMF, and the World Bank Group form a certain “world central bank” that we have mentioned, then the “Group of Thirty” in this structure acts as a headquarters or a governing center.

The leading "central bankers" in it, within the framework of informal contacts, receive instructions from key private oligarchic banks. What did the late David Rockefeller say there? “The private power of the intellectual elite is preferable to the self-determination of nations,” isn't it?

We will not even talk more about the G20 and its upcoming summit in Buenos Aires, although there is something to say about here too. For example, about the gradation of its participants into countries of the “first” and “second” orders, which include (respectively) the founders and members of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements (the so-called “Group of Ten”) and everyone else, including members of the BRICS association.

A certain exception, however, was made for the People's Republic of China: Zhou Xiaochuan, the head of the People's Bank of China, along with Mark Carney and Mario Draghi, are the incumbent heads of the G30 central banks (and note that the G30 does not have the current Fed Chairman Janet Yellen) ...

Is the hierarchy built? Bank of England, ECB and ... China? Who else? And also the chairman of the "thirty" Tharman Shanmugaratnam from Singapore, populated by ethnic Chinese.

Meanwhile, it is Singapore, since the days of the legendary Lee Kuan Yew and who moved his business partner George Soros Jim Rogers there, along with the former Hong Kong and Macau (special autonomous regions of the PRC Hong Kong and Macau), that plays a special role in the communication of Western and Eastern financial elites.

However, conclusions about the East are premature: there is little information, it is mostly closed, connected, among other things, with the internal alignment of the Chinese elite. And, in the end, it is clear that there are many fronts in the rivalry between China and the Anglo-Saxon West, including the financial one.

And that this rivalry is the essence of dialectical unity and the struggle of opposites. And within the framework of this rivalry, as the games taking place around the IMF's "basket of currencies" testify, different strategies clash. So far, one thing is clear: China is seeking to squeeze their Anglo-Saxon creators out of international financial institutions, seizing the levers and threads of globalization.

Without going into details, I will make an assumption, which I have already said: this will not work. For a number of reasons, the main one of which is that having won the world economic competition, it will inevitably have to win the world war, without which the Anglo-Saxons will never concede Olympus to anyone. Of course, China knows how to wait: two or three hundred years is not a question. However, the denouement will come sooner, for "if gentlemen are not satisfied with the rules, gentlemen change the rules."

And the last thing, according to the law of the genre, requires us to return to the beginning of the narrative.

Considering the above alignments, from which the uniqueness of the role of the "thirty" in the system of world power, at least economic and financial, follows, who dared (and could!) Challenge it?

How did it happen that this "someone", and even in Europe completely controlled by the Americans, was not timely "prevented" by no one, did not hold a soul-saving conversation with him, did not offer anything and did not outline the frightening prospects?

Why did the scandal come to the surface and become the property of the general public, albeit not fully understanding what is at stake?

There can be no two opinions: the opposition to the authorities is not born out of the losers and marginalized opposing groups; it emerges only from the power itself, as a result of its split and clash of interests, as soon as defeated opponents disappear. And this does not happen in any other way.

Brexit, like Donald Trump's rise to power, has deeply divided Western elites. Having lost in both cases, the globalists from what is today called the "deep state", and Ivan Ilyin called the "world behind the scenes" a hundred years ago, lost the initiative, went on the defensive, although they snap.

Otherwise, no human rights activist would have ever come forward with anything like that, and the head of the ECB would not have condescended to polemics and explanations, which catastrophically violate all the public and private "tables of ranks." But this is only one side, revealing the origins and direction of the blow inflicted on Draghi and the ECB as an important outpost of the globalists.

The other side is that it may turn out to be a kind of "response", a reaction to some provocative actions of the globalists themselves. Which? Without going into details, we will cite two materials from which it follows that there was an attempt to use the secret means of warfare in the hands of the "deep state".

And that this provocation was aimed at plunging humanity into a new Caribbean crisis, and possibly going further, provoking, if not a nuclear war, then at least a nuclear confrontation between some permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Whether it is true or not, there are no coincidences in politics. The unexpected visit to Washington of SVR Director Sergei Naryshkin, despite the sanctions imposed against him, is not the first, but a vivid example of a kind of “double bottom” in relations between our countries (or administrations?) That is inaccessible to the public perception of the stereotyped general public.

It is very likely that there is some relationship between the events outlined in this article. And that the frontiers and watersheds of the global confrontation, which in recent days has reached a new level of the “Kremlin list,” in fact, do not lie quite where they are usually seen.

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The bold plan of the son of the Saudi king to abandon oil as the main source of income provokes the most opposite assessments of economists. As you know, this daunting task is expected to be completed by 2030. But, for example, respected American analyst Zach Schreiber has doubts about the success of Prince Mohammed's plan for one simple reason. He predicts financial collapse for Saudi Arabia. Moreover, according to his estimates, it will come much earlier than the 30th year.

America listens to the forecasts and opinions of Zach Schreiber, writes CNN. Two years ago, he was among the very few visionaries who predicted a collapse in oil prices. That forecast earned his hedge fund PointState Capital a rumored $ 1 billion. Now Zach has another bold forecast, which has a lot to do with the oil market. He believes that Saudi Arabia will face financial collapse in 2-3 years.

In February, prices for "black gold" fell to a twelve-year low of $ 26 per barrel. By that time, all oil-producing countries - and KSA was no exception on this list - began to experience very serious economic and financial difficulties. In Riyadh, which had bathed in petrodollars for the last couple of decades, they watched in perplexity how the inexhaustible foreign exchange reserves that seemed like yesterday's inexhaustible were literally melting before our very eyes. Need forced the kingdom to "wake up" from hibernation and proclaim a radical reform program Saudi Vision 2030, calculated until 2030. Within the framework of this program, Ali al-Naimi, who had headed the oil industry of the KSA for more than two decades, was already dismissed. The sponsors of the program, which will be led by the king's son and first deputy crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, hope to largely eliminate dependence on oil within 15 years. However, Zach Schreiber believes that the Saudis do not have a decade and a half to diversify their economy, because they will face financial disaster before 2020.

"The Saudis have two to three years before the collapse," Zach Schreiber said at Sohn's 21st Annual Investment Conference. "No wonder they are now taking out wherever they can."

The Kingdom, according to rumors, plans to take a loan from a number of banks in the amount of $ 10 billion, and is also preparing the first auction for the sale of government bonds for foreign investors.

It will hardly help Riyadh, says Zach Schreiber, and the significant increase in oil production announced by the head of Aramco Amin Nasser at the expense of the Shaiba field, where it is planned to increase production by a third and bring it to 1 million barrels per day.

According to a US analyst, Saudi Arabia is facing a "structural collapse" because it cannot cope with two powerful threats at the same time: cheap oil and huge spending.

The main problem for KSA is that it needs a barrel price of $ 100 to obtain a balanced budget. The main reason is the high costs of maintaining the kingdom's 30 million population. Schreiber stresses that the kingdom's social system is unacceptable at current oil prices.

In addition to the costs of buying at least external stability within the kingdom, a lot of money from Riyadh goes to defense. The multibillion-dollar spending on the military department is explained not by some inherent militancy of the Saudis, but by the very tense situation prevailing in the region, as well as rivalry with Iran and the threat of social instability looming after the fall in oil prices. By the way, in the 2016 budget, the item "defense spending" decreased by 3.6%.

Zach Schreiber gives Saudi Arabia another two or three years, because in the basements of the central bank of the kingdom there are still approx. $ 600 billion. The KSA government hopes they will help him get through difficult times. However, the speed with which money is melting has given the IMF analysts reason to predict that the kingdom will soon be left without funds. From the end of 2014 to February 2016 reserves decreased by $ 140 billion. In addition, Schreiber points out, the Saudi government has nearly $ 340 billion in debt and liabilities. So the reserve fund is nowhere near as big as it might seem.

Naturally, the Saudis themselves are more familiar with the state of their finances than anyone else. This may be the explanation for the unexpected decision to sell 5% of Aramco shares.

Zach Schreiber compares the IPO of a state-owned oil company to "securing the future in order to buy at least a little time."

A return to the previous prices for "black gold", if possible, will not happen soon. Schreiber doubts this can happen in the medium term. The dollar, he thinks, can get stronger again at any moment. This will raise the price of raw materials sold in US dollars for importers. In addition, oil prices are threatened by electric cars that do not need gas and are constantly growing in popularity. Another factor hindering the rise in oil prices, the American analyst is sure, is China's gigantic debt, which can reduce the country's demand for raw materials and oil, incl.

Zach Schreiber, writes CNN, advises buying the dollar and selling Saudi rials, which are pegged to the US currency. Ultimately, Riyadh will have to either “untie” it from the dollar, or, more likely, maintain the peg, but at a lower rate, to help the kingdom's financial system survive.

At the end of his mini-forecast, Schreiber shares another principle-advice: hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. This means that he did not predict the financial collapse of the KSA to produce effect and that his words should be heeded.

Moscow, November 22 - "Vesti.Ekonomika". The situation in the world economy and the world of finance only at first glance seems stable, but in fact, almost all conditions have been created for a new financial collapse.

We add that the yield on Japan's ten-year bonds is now at minus 0.001%.

In addition, many experts are confident that the actions of the monetary authorities have created all the conditions for this.

Globally, the volume of government debt with negative returns is approximately $ 9 trillion. The yield on 85% of government bonds is less than the value of global inflation, and investment income on them can be positive only if the value continues to rise and exchange rates move in line with the forecasts of these same investors.

In other words, all the years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, pension funds, insurance companies and other long-term investment companies have loaded their balance sheets with extremely risky assets and reached the maximum in history.

Another risk is borne by the central banks themselves. The fact is that the largest central banks continue to hold on their balance sheets large volumes of the most reliable bonds. As of August 1, 2017, the Fed, Bank of Japan, and ECB had assets of $ 13.8 trillion, with both the Bank of Japan ($ 4.75 trillion) and ECB assets ($ 5.1 trillion) exceeding those of the Federal Reserve ($ 4 , 3 trillion) for the third month in a row.

The maturity calendar of bonds only exacerbates the risks of financial contamination from tightening monetary policy in the balance sheets of insurance companies and pension funds. In the case of the United States, according to information from PIMCO, the peak maturity of bonds, agency debt and TIPS held by the Federal Reserve falls between the first quarter of 2018 and the third quarter of 2020. insurers and pension funds will be in 2020-2022.