The Economic Recovery is an Illusion: The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Warns of Future Crises

A Coming Crisis

The derivatives market represents a massive threat to the stability of the global economy. However, it is one among many threats, all of which are related and intertwined; one will set off another. The big elephant in the room is the major financial bubble created from the bailouts and "stimulus" packages worldwide. This money has been used by major banks to consolidate the economy; buying up smaller banks and absorbing the real economy; productive industry. The money has also gone into speculation, feeding the derivatives bubble and leading to a rise in stock markets, a completely illusory and manufactured occurrence. The bailouts have, in effect, fed the derivatives bubble to dangerous new levels as well as inflating the stock market to an unsustainable position.

However, a massive threat looms in the cost of the bailouts and so-called "stimulus" packages. The economic crisis was created as a result of low interest rates and easy money: high-risk loans were being made, money was invested in anything and everything, the housing market inflated, the commercial real estate market inflated, derivatives trade soared to the hundreds of trillions per year, speculation ran rampant and dominated the global financial system. Hedge funds were the willing facilitators of the derivatives trade, and the large banks were the major participants and holders.

At the same time, governments spent money loosely, specifically the United States, paying for multi-trillion dollar wars and defense budgets, printing money out of thin air, courtesy of the global central banking system. All the money that was produced, in turn, produced debt. By 2007, the total debt - domestic, commercial and consumer debt - of the United States stood at a shocking $51 trillion.¹⁷

As if this debt burden was not enough, considering it would be impossible to ever pay back, the past two years has seen the most expansive and rapid debt expansion ever seen in world history - in the form of stimulus and bailout packages around the world. In July of 2009, it was reported that, "U.S. taxpayers may be on the hook for as much as $23.7 trillion to bolster the economy and bail out financial companies, said Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program."¹⁸