On August 6-7, in Alexandria (Egypt), LEAP/E2020, in the person of Franck Biancheri, was invited to present the European perspective in a top-level round-table on “global extremism, terror and response strategies” organised by the Strategic Foresight Group and SMWIPM Institute for Peace Studies at Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

Strategic Foresight Group

January 16th 2007
GlobalEurope
Anticipation Bulletin N°11
Sommaire

Impact phase of the Global Systemic Crisis: Six aspects of America’s « Very Great Depression »
The year 2007 will witness the sliding of the US into the « Very Great Depression », i.e., the rare historical conjunction of a severe economic depression, a strategic collapse and a major political and social internal crisis, at the centre of the phase of impact of the global systemic crisis. Housing crisis, financial crisis, economic crisis, trade war, military escalation and political crisis are the six aspects described in this edition of GEAB...
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The slide into recession provokes a « Fog of Statistics » used to raise doubts about whether or not the Titanic is sinking
The passage from 2006 to 2007 perfectly has illustrated the global systemic crisis' stepping into a phase of impact, as anticipated by LEAP/E2020. Just like in any change, the passage by zero is characterized by a « fog of statistics » where indicators point in opposite directions and measurements provide contradictory results, with margins of error sometimes wider than the measurement itself...
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Negative personal saving rates and declining home prices on a national scale: Two major US economic indicators hit lowest level since the 1930 crisis
When at the beginning of 2006 the US Federal Reserve and the whole of the financial and economic players and media were negating the existence of a real estate bubble (and formally rejected any risk of crisis in this sector), the collapse of prices had in fact already begun leading the US housing market to its most severe crisis since the 1930s (analysts now refer to the « 2007 housing depression ») characterized by a yearly decline in home prices throughout the entire US territory...
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« Roller coaster » US interest rates in 2007: Up in spring and down in fall
As early as Spring 2007, the Fed will be confronted to the political necessity of reviving by any means a US economy about to slide from recession to depression, knowing that the dollar weakness prevents from taking any radical measure such as dropping interest rates (assured to result in a collapse of the US currency, now solely supported by interest rates)...
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The US financial sector has already entered bankruptcy: Today Ownit, Mortgage USA Lenders,… tomorrow Ameriquest, Wells Fargo, HSBC Finances?
While these days big international players boast about the extraordinary health of international finances and about the record-profit margins made by hedge funds and private banks, the first mortgage lenders file for bankruptcy...
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Middle East: To conceal its failure in Iraq, the Bush administration is preparing a Shiite-Sunni intra-Muslim war, while Israel gets ready to launch tactical nuclear weapons on Iran’s nuclear programme
The approaching 2008 presidential election will radicalize the two camps starting in spring 2007. Pro-Israeli Democrats on the one hand and a pro-Zionist Bush administration on the other hand will result in placing the Israelo-Iranian crisis on Washington's agenda sometimes in the next three months...
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China and Russia’s move to drive the US out of central Asia and to accelerate the dollar fall
It is probably in the prospect of the large diplomatic crisis that will go along the internationalization of the Iraqi conflict (at stake in fact under cover of « intra-religiosity ») in spring 2007, that Russia and China recently inflicted a major diplomatic snub to the US by vetoing a resolution proposed by the US demanding from Myanmar to set up a process of democratic transition...
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Emerging markets, mortgage risk: In 2007, risk is back in financial markets… and it will be a heavy bill after many careless years
As markets keep on pretending they can ignore risk because they always discover new protective « martingales » (LEAP/E2020 previously described that in the field of subprime loans this claim is about to be shattered), the 2007 « Very Great Depression » revives the notion of « country financial risks ». Indeed the weakening of US diplomatic power will result in a renewal of national practices diverging from international markets' « expectations »...
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Burst of Europe’s real estate bubble: Spain comes first soon followed by France and UK (an average of - 10% in 2007)
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LEAP/E2020’s counsels to cross over the « 2007 Very Great Depression »: Europe’s real estate, US industry, commodities and currencies
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GlobalEurometre - Results and analysis
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