The chart says it all, really. (Click on it to see it full size.) Of note:

• The US dollar has now lost more than a third of its value (-35%) against a basket of major currencies since Feb 2002
• The decline is accelerating. The USD has shed -12.5% of its value in the last year, -3.5% in the last month, and -1.5% in the last week alone

This is not good news for anyone.

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King told the Financial Times yesterday that the world’s central bankers are now holding conference calls every day to discuss the credit collapse. Its clear now that they have lost all semblance of control over the hyperinflationary dollar collapse.

• The price of Gold leapt to $845
• Oil passed the $98 a barrel mark
• The dollar fell to nearly $2.11 against Sterling, to a 60 year low against the Canadian dollar, to below $1.47 against the Euro, nearly 113 Yen
• In their insanity, Wall Street was demanding that the Fed cuts interest rates again
• Stock indices continue to fall
• Morgan Stanley discovered a further $3.7 billion of new losses in mortgage securities
• Fitch Ratings threatened to cut the AAA ratings of the world’s largest bond insurers after a review of their $2.5 trillion exposure to the global market in collateralised debt obligations (CDOs, parcels of repackaged debt securities), which could trigger a fresh credit crisis.

More dangerous still, Xu Jian, a vice director of China’s central bank was quoted telling a Beijing conference a couple of days ago that the US dollar is “losing its status as the world currency.” Chinese government officials have said elsewhere that China will further diversify some of its $1.33 trillion of foreign exchange reserves, which can only increase the pressure on the dollar.

The only solution to the ongoing crisis is to admit defeat with the current fraudulent system, and build a new one based on principles of national sovereignty and science driven infrastructure development. The sooner we admit that, the sooner we can begin the work necessary to give our children a future worth living.

… according to the BBC. The Independent says that the markets are worried that undeclared bank losses will reach $1 trillion.

Alistair Darling told the Independent that “We are experiencing an unparalleled period of financial uncertainty caused by the problems in the US housing market … I believe that we can get through that. Many banks in this country have very strong balance sheets after years of making very good profits.”

The BBC article reports Mervyn King as saying “I think we did feel strongly that it would not be right to bail out imprudent banks - we didn’t do that - and we had to take action to protect not the managers, not the shareholders, but the retail depositors - and so far, no retail depositor in this country has lost a penny in this episode.”

Note the language - “many banks,” “so far.”

These guys are shitting bricks.

According to The Age, Leo de Bever “has warned mum-and-dad investors to prepare for a massive sharemarket crash.”

I say again, no shit Sherlock?

The crash has already happened. The only thing keeping the stockmarket alive is the continued pumping of hyperinflationary “liquidity” into the markets.

The FED claimed that as a result of the recent interest rate cut it had shifted from its previous stance of giving top priority to economic growth to one in which the upside risks to inflation “roughly balance” the downside risks to growth. What a pile of crap. What they mean is they will continue to massage the inflation figures so that the hyperinflationary rise in commodity prices is offset by the continuing reduction in costs of electronic and other goods that people can no longer afford to buy, and they can continue to announce an on-target headline inflation figure.

In the meantime, banks continue to demonstrate that they are already bankrupt, the so-called reserve currency of the world continues to collapse in a heap of steaming poo, and staples like pasta will be classified as “luxury foods.”

• During May and June of 2005, the Standard & Poor rating agency downgraded General Motors’ and Ford’s credit rating, on the more than $450 billion of the two companies’ debt, to junk-bond status. This set off an implosion of collateralised debt obligations (CDOs)–a form of highly speculative instrument–which caused hedge funds to lose hundreds of billions of dollars, nearly triggering the melt-down of the world financial system.
• In September 2006, the Greenwich, Connecticut-based Amaranth Advisers hedge fund, which had $9 billion under management, went bust, the largest hedge fund failure in history. This caused strong reverberations in the natural gas market–where Amaranth speculated–and among other hedge funds, which scrambled for liquidity, although the deniers of reality shouted that “the event wasn’t as big as LTCM.”
• During January and February 2007 the sub-prime mortgage crisis, which had been festering since the last half of 2006, erupted full force, as banks began to acknowledge sizable sub-prime defaults. The foundations of the $20 trillion U.S. housing bubble began to shake. On March 13, New Century, the second largest sub-prime lender (after Countrywide), once a hot property, was delisted by the New York Stock Exchange, and effectively ceased to exist. New Century’s market capitalisation had evaporated from $1.75 billion to a mere $55 million at the point it was put out of its misery.
• During the period between mid-Summer 2006 and November 1, 2007, 178 U.S. mortgage-related lending companies went out of existence. According to projections based on data provided by Foreclosures.com, during 2007, U.S. home foreclosures will reach 2.02 million, 52% greater than during 2006.
• During July 2007 in the United States, banks rang up spectacular losses in asset-backed securities, particularly Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS). Then on August 9, France’s BNP Paribas, one of the world’s largest banks, announced that it was suspending all transactions in three of its “dynamic investment funds,” which all held mortgage-backed securities. German banks announced five similar funds were being shut down. The crisis had now hit Europe, and expanded globally, causing markets to freeze up–ranging from junk bonds to commercial paper, far beyond the sub-prime mortgages and MBS. Between late July and the end of the October, the Bank of England, the U.S. Federal Reserve, and the European Central Bank, frantically pumped in more than three-quarters of a trillion dollars in short-term and medium-term funds, to prevent markets from melting down, and banks from folding. This set the ground for a Weimar-style hyperinflation.
• During September and October, the U.S. banks recorded $35 billion in third-quarter write-downs and loan loss provisions, capped by these banks losing nearly a quarter trillion in market capitalization. But the losses were only a fraction of the actual losses that the banks carry on their books. During the last week of October, and first week of November, the crisis entered a new phase. With the more than $1.5 trillion SIV, conduit, and CDO markets frozen, Merrill Lynch announced an $8.4 billion third quarter write-down, and Citigroup a $6.5 billion write-down. But there were much worse financial convulsions going on inside these two companies, behind the scenes. Stanley O’Neal, and Charles Prince III were forced out as CEOs of Merill Lynch and Citigroup, respectively.

Yep, that global economy sure is robust.

The United States has entered a recession, according to “highly-regarded” investor Jim Rogers.

No shit, Sherlock?

He went on to tell the Telegraph that he was switching out of the dollar and into yen, the yuan and the Swiss franc.

That’ll help.

George Bush’s “insane decision” to replace 20% of petrol with biofuel over 10 years is behind the recent price rise in food products, says Italy’s number-one pasta producer Guido Barilla — only failing to give equal mention to Nobelist Al Gore in the promotion of this genocidal policy.

In an interview with the Italian daily La Repubblica on the 20th Oct, Barilla charged that Bush’s decision “has unleashed a chain-reaction that has increased prices of all agricultural commodities.”

The Italian antitrust authority has started an investigation on bread and pasta prices, which have increased by as much as 20% recently. “It is a monumental mistake,” Barilla charged. “When I see ads of farmers saying they are proud to be growing energy, I shudder. You cannot use sacred commodities to feed 4×4s.”

A commentary in the Catholic daily Avvenire, added that financial speculators are worsening the food price situation. The process “would not have exploded in such a virulent way, had it not been `doped’ by speculators at the Chicago Board of Trade,” wrote Paolo Viana, the head of the Christian Workers Movement.