Has the World Gone Mad??

Has the world gone mad? Across Illinois, up to 10,000 convicted criminals could soon be released early from prisons. The Governor says that cutting those prisoners loose could save more than $100 million. But at what cost to public safety??

Maybe it’s just a clever ploy to coerce people into paying more income taxes through fear-mongering. You can expect to see much more of this around the world in the countries that are burdened with growing deficits. They are going to cut spending in draconian ways and we are going to be more and more shocked at the tactics they will resort to.

Yet another bank in the US bites the dust. The closure of Wyoming Bank is the 53rd failure of 2009.

California is bankrupt and the government is trading IOU’s with the banks. How much longer can this go on for?

I have a client in Michigan, where there is the highest unemployment in the whole of the US. Only a few months ago, her house was valued at $1M and now it is down to $250K and she is still not able to find a buyer.

Here in New Zealand, the situation in the housing market and banking sector isn’t quite as bad, but I predict that we will follow the US, we are often a year or so behind them.

China has made repeated calls for the world to diversify out of the US dollar. At the G8 meeting this week, Chinese State Councillor Dai Bingguo was unequivocal in calling for the world to diversify the reserve currency system and aim at relatively stable exchange rates. France also unexpectedly called for a currency discussion and moving toward a "multimonetary" system, though Britain warned any debate should be reserved for the long term to avoid destabilising markets in the midst of a global recession.

China's ideas for changing the system had previously been mentioned in reports by its central bank, but had never been voiced in a speech by such a high-ranking political leader.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev illustrated his call for a supranational currency to replace the dollar by pulling from his pocket a sample coin of a “united future world currency” to the heads of the G8 delegations.
The test coin means that they are getting ready. The question is are you ready? Do you know what the consequences of having a world currency will be? How will it be implemented? What kind of disruption will it cause? Who will be the winners and who will be the losers?

Firstly, there could be a bank holiday. This happened in 1933 when all the banks closed for four days in the US. How would it feel if you couldn’t access your money for days if not weeks? What if they devalue your currency? All your hard-earned money could become worthless. These are very serious times we live in and constantly we are receiving pointers and messages about what the future could hold. Are you listening?