Financial collpase....so is a Public Health Policy/Econ emphasis a wise choice?

<p>Essentially, I s*it myself when I read the article below. </p>

<p>Now, out of curiosity, I want to know which careers you folks think are the most viable and sustainable, even in light of the extremely high probability of a massive financial industry collapse. Please do not argue the validity of the data here, in fact, let's even assume it's a fairy tale (and let's assume the Fed Reserve is being honest when they claim that we will not experience hyper-inflation.....lulz)</p>

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<p>Yes, it is officially time to start freaking out about the global economy. The European financial system is falling apart and it is going to go down hard. If Europe was going to be saved it would have happened by now. The big money insiders have already pulled their funds from vulnerable positions and they are ready to ride out the coming chaos.</p>

<p>Over the next few months the slow motion train wreck currently unfolding in Europe will continue to play out and things will likely really start really heating up in the fall once summer vacations are over.</p>

<p>Most Americans greatly underestimate how much Europe can affect the global economy. Europe actually has a larger population than the United States does. Europe also has a significantly larger economy and a much larger banking system. The world is more interconnected today than ever before, and a collapse of the financial system in Europe will cause a massive global recession. Once the global economy slides into another major recession, it is going to take years to recover. The pain is going to be immense. Yes, that is going to include the United States. Sadly, we never recovered from the last recession, and it is frightening to think about how much further this next recession is going to knock us down.</p>

<p>The big problem is that there is simply way, way, way too much debt in the United States and Europe. It has been a lot of fun spending all of this borrowed money, but now we get to pay the price.</p>

<p>The following are 19 reasons why it is time to start freaking out about the global economy….</p>

<h1>1 The yield on 10 year Italian bonds has now risen to more than 6 percent.</h1>

<h1>2 The yield on 10 year Spanish bonds has now risen to more than 7 percent. This is considered to be an unsustainable level.</h1>

<h1>3 Citigroup Chief Economist Willem Buiter says that both Italy and Spain are going to need major bailouts.</h1>

<h1>4 The Spanish banking crisis continues to get worse. The following is from aCNN article that was posted on Monday….</h1>

<pre><code>But the depth of the nation’s crisis has raised doubts about whether €100 billion will be enough to recapitalize the banks. For example, the Bank of Spain, the nation’s central bank, released data Monday showing that “doubtful” loans — those that are more than 3 months overdue — rose to €152.7 billion in April, equal to 8.7% of all the loans held by the nation’s banks.
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<h1>5 Unemployment in Spain is sitting at a record high ofover 24 percent with no hope in sight.</h1>

<h1>6 Unemployment in the eurozone as a whole has hit a brand new all-time record high.</h1>

<h1>7 The socialists won an outright majority in the recent parliamentary elections in France. That means that France and Germany are now headed in completely different directions. The close cooperation that we have seen between France and Germany in recent years is now over.</h1>

<h1>8 New French President Francois Hollande has promised to implement a top tax rate of 75 percenton those making over 1 million euros a year.</h1>

<h1>9 German Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared that Germany will not budge at all on the terms of the Greek bailout.</h1>

<h1>10 Analysts at Citigroup Global Markets are projecting that the odds of Greece leaving the euro over the next 12 to 18 months are still between 50 and 75 percent.</h1>

<h1>11 Money is being transferred from banks in southern Europe to banks in northern Europe at an astounding pace….</h1>

<pre><code>Financial advisers and private bankers whose clients have accounts too large to be covered by a Europe-wide guarantee on deposits up to 100,000 euros ($125,000), are reporting a ‘bank run by wire transfer’ that has picked up during May.

Much of this money has headed north to banks in London, Frankfurt and Geneva,financial advisers say.

‘It’s been an ongoing process but it certainly picked up pace a couple of weeks ago We believe there is a continuous 2-3 year bank run by wire transfer,’ said Lorne Baring, managing director at B Capital, a Geneva-based pan European wealth management firm.
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<h1>12 As I wrote about recently, about 500 million euros a day has been pulled out of Greek banks so far this month.</h1>

<h1>13 The Bank for International Settlements is warning that global lending is contracting at the fastest rate that we have seen since the end of the last financial crisis.</h1>

<h1>14 Lloyd’s of London has publicly admitted that it is making preparations for a collapse of the eurozone.</h1>

<h1>15 Government debt levels all over the industrialized world have exploded in recent years. The following is from a recent article by Stephen Lendman….</h1>

<pre><code>Five years ago, OECD countries sovereign debt/GDP ratios were 70%. Today it’s 106% and rising.

Anything over 100% is considered to be an extremely dangerous level.
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<h1>16 The economic problems in Europe are already taking a toll on the U.S. economy. At this point U.S. exports to Europe are way down.</h1>

<h1>17 One recent poll found that 75 percent of Americans are either “very or somewhat worried” that the U.S. economy is heading for another recession.</h1>

<h1>18 Under Barack Obama, the United States has been indulging in a debt binge unlike anything ever seen in U.S. history. The following is from a recent Forbes article….</h1>

<pre><code>After just one year of the Obama spending binge, federal spending had already rocketed to 25.2% of GDP, the highest in American history except for World War II. That compares to 20.8% in 2008, and an average of 19.6% during Bush’s two terms. The average during President Clinton’s two terms was 19.8%, and during the 60-plus years from World War II until 2008 — 19.7%. Obama’s own fiscal 2013 budget released in February projects the average during the entire 4 years of the Obama Administration to come in at 24.4% in just a few months. That budget shows federal spending increasing from $2.983 trillion in 2008 to an all time record $3.796 trillion in 2012, an increase of 27.3%.

Moreover, before Obama there had never been a deficit anywhere near $1 trillion. The highest previously was $458 billion, or less than half a trillion, in 2008. The federal deficit for the last budget adopted by a Republican controlled Congress was $161 billion for fiscal year 2007. But the budget deficits for Obama’s four years were reported in Obama’s own 2013 budget as $1.413 trillion for 2009, $1.293 trillion for 2010, $1.3 trillion for 2011, and $1.327 trillion for 2012, four years in a row of deficits of $1.3 trillion or more, the highest in world history.
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<h1>19 Barack Obama almost seems more focused on his golf game than on the problems the global economy is having. He just finished up playing his 100th round of golf since he became president.</h1>

<p>If you are looking for some kind of a global financial miracle you can stop watching.</p>

<p>If European leaders had a master plan to save Europe they would have shown it by now.</p>

<p>If Barack Obama had a master plan to fix things he would have implemented it by now.</p>

<p>If the Federal Reserve had a master plan to fix things we would have seen it by now.</p>

<p>The entire house of cards is starting to come down and things are going to get really messy.</p>

<p>A lot of people both in the United States and in Europe are going to lose their jobs and their homes over the next few years. It is likely that the next recession will be even more painful than the last one was.</p>

<p>Now is not the time to panic. If you acknowledge what is coming and prepare accordingly then you will likely be in good shape.</p>

<p>But if you stick your head in the sand and pretend that everything is going to be okay then the next few years will likely be incredibly painful for you.</p>

<p>It’s hard not to mention how ridiculous and radical this article is. To say we are going to experience hyper-inflation is ridiculous. Ben Bernanke has actually been criticized today for not increasing the rate of inflation. If you know anything about monetary policy you know this in theory would raise prices, wages, GDP, etc. If there is one thing Bernanke is not doing is letting inflation get out of control. He also has more options left intentionally on the table just in case Europe does go bad. Oh and newsflash to this author, increasing the deficit (through consumption or investment) is the only way fiscal policy can have a impact on the economy. Bottom line is calm down, the debt isn’t a ridiculous issue either as American’s own 75% of American debt and our assets have increased 6x as fast (not exact) as our debt which improves our debt ratio. Basically we unlike Greece have plenty of assets to pay back our debt. Oh and Europe!? Europe being in the shape it is isn’t exactly going to be negative to U.S.</p>

<p>So calm down, we’re breaking out of a recession nothing is going to be perfect yet. What you should do is go into a solid major from a school good at your major. IMO Econ is one of the most interesting yet useless majors unless your going to a very very very prestigious Economics school. Accounting is just about as solid as it gets I would say and leads into a lot of opportunities. But please don’t panic we’ll be alright.</p>

<p>Sorry about the rant but the article was designed just to scare people.</p>

<p>“Oh and Europe!? Europe being in the shape it is isn’t exactly going to be negative to U.S.”</p>

<p>Are you kidding here? I mean, yes the original article is a little sensationalist but… What?</p>

<p>It depends on where they shift there money away from really. Think of how well the U.S. did vs Europe after WWII because Europe was in such bad shape and couldn’t invest in innovation. U.S. companies had the advantage then because they offered better products. If Europe decreases investment more than consumption than theoretically it could benefit U.S. companies, not the world economy though. I’d recommend people check out the book Unintended Consequences by Edward Conard for a little more insight in the economy.</p>

<p>Yes but our situation is pretty much inverse compared to WW2 (and the same thing in WW1). Our debt to Europe basically means Europe was/is paying us to keep existing so that we can keep buying half of its exports. You can’t break a vicious cycle like that without both countries getting in big trouble. If their industries fall apart, they have no reason to keep being our financial foot stool, and the national debt these sensationalist articles yap about so much actually turns relevant.</p>

<p>I’ll check out the book you recommended, I like to stay open minded!</p>

<p>But now that we’ve opened this can of worms…</p>

<p>What is America’s current debt? Who owns our debt? What are the implications of the falling dollar? What are the implications of a weakening euro? How do we solve our debt? Where is fiscal policy sending us? It doesn’t take a rocket scientists to calculate that one can only FINANCE DEBT WITH SO MUCH DEBT BEFORE S*IT HITS THE FAN. </p>

<p>So, thank you for questioning my intelligence by a simple theory throws all the aforementioned propositions to waste. Let me reiterate (and please check history if you think what I’m saying isn’t valid): YOU CAN ONLY FINANCE DEBT WITH SO MUCH DEBT. <em>NOTICE THE LIMITED NATURE OF THE SENTENCE.</em></p>