6 Charts Which Prove That Central Banks All Over The Globe Are Recklessly Printing Money

From The Economic Collapse Blog:

If the U.S. dollar is being devalued so rapidly, then why does it sometimes increase in value against other global currencies?  Well, it is because everybody is recklessly printing money now.  The 6 charts which you are about to see below prove this.  The truth is that it is not just the U.S.Federal Reserve which has been printing money like there is no tomorrow.  Out of control money printing has also been happening in the UK, in the EU, in Japan, in China and in India.  There are times when one particular global currency will fall faster than the others, but the reality is that they are all being rapidly devalued.  Unfortunately, this is a recipe for a global economic nightmare.

Right now you can almost smell the panic as it rises in global financialmarkets.  Investors all over the world are racing to get out of paper and to get into hard assets.  Just about anything that is “real” and “tangible” is hot right now.  Gold hit a record high last year and it is on the rise again.  In fact, it just hit a new five-week high.  Demand for silver is becoming absolutely ridiculous right now.  Oil is marching up towards $100 a barrel again.  Agricultural commodities have exploded in price over the past year.  Many investors are even gobbling up art and other collectibles.

Paper money is no longer considered to be safe.  All over the globe investors are watching all of the reckless money printing that has been going on and they are becoming alarmed.  An increasing number of investors and financial institutions are putting their wealth into hard assets that are real and tangible in an effort to preserve their wealth.

The other day, a reader of this column named James sent me some charts that he had put together.  I thought they were so good that I asked him if I could include them in an article.  These charts show how central banksall over the globe have been recklessly printing money.  Over the last 30 years virtually the entire world has developed a great love affair with fiat currency….

So is everyone printing money?

The U.S. is printing lots of money…..

Source, The St. Louis Fed

The Bank of England is printing lots of money…..

Source: The BoE

The EU is printing lots of money….

Source: The ECB

Japan is printing lots of money…..

Source: The BoJ

China is printing lots of money…..

Source: The People’s Bank of China

India is printing lots of money…..

Source: Reserve Bank of India

Of course anyone with half a brain can see where all of this is ultimately headed.  In the end, inflation is going to spiral out of control and we are going to witness financial implosion on a global scale.

So why don’t these nations just adopt sound money?

Well, it turns out that if you are a member of the IMF, you are specifically prohibited from having gold-backed currency.

Yes, you read that correctly.

In fact, U.S. Representative Ron Paul once sent an open letter to the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserveasking about this and he received no response.  The following is the content of that letter….

Dear Sirs:

I am writing regarding Article 4, Section 2b of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Articles of Agreement. As you may be aware, this language prohibits countries who are members of the IMF from linking their currency to gold. Thus, the IMF is forbidding countries suffering from an erratic monetary policy from adopting the most effective means of stabilizing their currency. This policy could delay a country’s recovery from an economic crisis and retard economic growth, thus furthering economic and political instability.

I would greatly appreciate an explanation from both the Treasury and the Federal Reserve of the reasons the United States has continued to acquiesce in this misguided policy. Please contact Mr. Norman Singleton, my legislative director, if you require any further information regarding this request. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Ron Paul
U.S. House of Representatives

Sadly, the truth is that the global elite don’t want nations to start adopting gold-backed currencies.  They want countries to use fiat currencies that they can openly manipulate for their own benefit.

At this point, every nation on earth (to the best of my knowledge) uses a fiat currency.  All of the major global currencies are being continually devalued.  In fact, there are times when counties will purposely devalue their currencies even more rapidly in order to gain a competitive advantage in world trade.

This is why so many investors now have such an aversion to paper currency.  It starts losing value the moment you take possession of it.

In some areas of the world, “gold fever” is absolutely exploding.  For example, China imported five times as much gold in 2010 as it did in 2009.  On the Shanghai Gold Exchange, trading volume soared 43 percentduring the first 10 months of 2010.

Gold, silver and other precious metals are now seen as a great hedge against inflation worldwide.  Investors all over the globe are demonstrating a strong preference for “real money” over “paper money”.

So what does all of this mean?

It means that some tremendous imbalances are being built up in the global financial system.  The centralbanks of the world must continue to inflate these bubbles with constantly increasing amounts of paper money and debt in order to keep the game going.  If at some point the reckless money printing comes to a screeching halt it is going to unleash hell on global financial markets.

But if all of this reckless money printing continues we are eventually going to see horrific inflation all over the planet.  In fact, we are already seeing significant inflation happening in many areas of the globe.  Almost every single day a new headline about inflation in China seems to pop up in the financial news.  Rising food prices are sparking unrest in the Middle East and elsewhere.  Even U.S. consumers are starting to see some uncomfortable price increases at the gas pump and in the supermarket.

So it is not just Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that is off his rocker.  The whole world is going crazy with money printing.

Hopefully this whole thing is not going to end as badly as many of us fear that it will.  But right now the central banks of the world are pumping unprecedented amounts of cash into the global financial system, and those in the global financial system are funneling a very large percentage of that cash into hard assets.  Unless something changes, that is going to mean that prices for basic necessities such as food and gas are going to continue to rise.

This is quite a fine mess that we are in.

Does anyone see a way out?

The Numbers Behind the Middle Eastern and North African Revolts

by Washington's Blog Global Research, February 21, 2011

Washington's Blog - 2011-02-20

What determines which Middle Eastern or North African (MENA) countries will face revolt?  On February 3rd, the Economist came up with a list of "vulnerable" countries based upon the amount of democracy, corruption and press freedom: Unemployment But the Economist index doesn't take unemployment into account. As Alternet notes: Arab Labour Organisation (ALO) figures show that Arab countries have among the highest unemployment rates in the world -- an average of 14.5 percent in fiscal year 2007/08 compared with the international average of 5.7 percent. The rates may even be higher if one accepts unofficial estimates. Global risk specialist Mi2g notes: There are a lot of “orphans” and most are young – 65 percent of the population of the Arab League is under the age of 30. Youth unemployment rates are exorbitantly high – as high as 75 percent in some countries like Algeria. While the informal economy provides partial compensation, this does not provide security; the Jasmine Revolution was triggered by the self-immolation of a young man, Mohamed Bouazizi, unemployed after police confiscated his wheelbarrow, used to make ends meet by selling fruits and vegetables. On February 2nd, Nomura published a report written by Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations, arguing that youth unemployment and underemployment - along with a large proportion of youth - are primary factors driving revolt in the Middle East:  In both Tunisia and Egypt factors were at play which are also to be found in other economies in the region, notably:–An autocratic and corrupt regime [and] A significant―youth bulge and related unemployment and under-employment.... In other words, when there alot of young, unemployed (or under-employed) people, they might revolt. Here are statistics from Nomura showing the percentage of youth under 15 years old and median age in years in the Middle East and Northern Africa: Country Population Aged <15> Median Age (2010) Algeria 27.0% 26.2% Egypt 32.1% 23.9% Iran 23.8% 26.8% Iraq 40.7% 19.3% Jordan 34.0% 22.8% Libya 30.1% 26.2 % Morocco 28.0% 26.2% Saudi Arabia 32.0 % 24.6% Syria 34.7% 22.5% Tunisia 22.9% 29.1% Yemen 43.4% 17.8% On February 9th, the Economist came up with a revised index, which they call the "shoe thrower's index" (throwing one's shoes at someone is the ultimate sign of disrespect in the Arab world). The index gives a 35% weighting for the share of the population that is under 25; 15% for the number of years the government has been in power; 15% for both corruption and lack of democracy as measured by existing indices; 10% for GDP per person; 5% for an index of censorship and 5% for the absolute number of people younger than 25:  As a side note, youth unemployment is rising globally. As the New York Times reported last August:  Youth unemployment across the world has climbed to a new high and is likely to climb further this year, a United Nations agency said Thursday, while warning of a “lost generation” as more young people give up the search for work. The agency, the International Labor Organization, said in a report that of some 620 million young people ages 15 to 24 in the work force, about 81 million were unemployed at the end of 2009 — the highest level in two decades of record-keeping by the organization, which is based in Geneva. The youth unemployment rate increased to 13 percent in 2009 from 11.9 percent in the last assessment in 2007. “There’s never been an increase of this magnitude — both in terms of the rate and the level — since we’ve been tracking the data,” said Steven Kapsos, an economist with the organization. The agency forecast that the global youth unemployment rate would continue to increase through 2010, to 13.1 percent, as the effects of the economic downturn continue. It should then decline to 12.7 percent in 2011.  *** In some especially strained European countries, including Spain and Britain, many young people have become discouraged and given up the job hunt, it said. The trend will have “significant consequences for young people,” as more and more join the ranks of the already unemployed, it said. That has the potential to create a “ ‘lost generation’ comprised of young people who have dropped out of the labor market, having lost all hope of being able to work for a decent living. *** Data from Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical agency, show Spain had a jobless rate of 40.5 percent in May for people under 25. Indeed, as I have previously pointed out, youth unemployment is also very high in the U.S. And when those who have given up looking for work and those who are underemployed are taken into account (i.e. using the U-6 measure of unemployment), it is clear that the youth of much of the world are suffering Depression-level unemployment.  Food As many have noted, soaring food prices are also one of the main reasons for the revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya and elsewhere. Nomura pointed out last September: The World Bank (2009, p.11) estimates that nearly two-thirds of total income is spent on food in the poor urban population of the developing world. High food prices reduce the ability to meet even basic needs and can lead to increased poverty and become a potential source of protests, riots and political tension ....  Alternet notes: "Tunisians and Algerians are hungry. The Egyptians and Yemenis are right behind them," Emirati commentator Mishaal Al Gergawi wrote in the Dubai- based newspaper Gulf News. "Mohammad Bouazizi didn't set himself on fire because he couldn't blog or vote. People set themselves on fire because they can't stand seeing their family wither away slowly, not of sorrow, but of cold stark hunger." While Americans spend less than 15 percent of household expenditures on food, Egyptians spend 50%. As UPI reports:  Just as in Tunisia, the spark was skyrocketing food prices -- increasing at a brisk 17 percent annually in Egypt. That's unhealthy in any economy but particularly one in which, as estimated by the investment house Nomura, on average 50 percent of household expenditures goes toward food. (In the United States, by comparison, food costs represent 14 percent -- and falling -- of the Consumer Price Index.) For that, Egyptians may in no small way thank the U.S. Federal Reserve and its policies of "quantitative easing" -- known by most as "printing money." Nomura prepared the following chart showing household spending on food as a percentage of income (I've bolded information on the MENA countries): Rank Country Nomura’s Food Vulnerability Index (NFVI) GDP per capita Current prices US$ Household spending on food % of total consumption Net food exports (% of GDP) 1 Bangladesh 101.5 497 53.8 -3.3 2 Morocco 101.3 2,769 63.0 -2.1 3 Algeria 101.3 4,845 53.0 -2.8 4 Nigeria 101.2 1,370 73.0 -0.9 5 Lebanon 101.2 6,978 34.0 -3.9 6 Egypt 101.0 1,991 48.1 -2.1 7 Sri Lanka 101.0 2,013 39.6 -2.7 8 Sudan 100.9 1,353 52.9 -1.3 9 Hong Kong 100.9 30,863 25.8 -4.4 10 Azerbaijan 100.8 5,315 60.2 -0.6 11 Angola 100.8 4,714 46.1 -1.4 12 Romania 100.7 9,300 49.4 -1.1 13 Philippines 100.7 1,847 45.6 -1.0 14 Kenya 100.7 783 45.8 -0.8 15 Pakistan 100.6 991 47.6 -0.4 16 Libya 100.6 14,802 37.2 -1.7 17 Dominican Rep 100.6 4,576 38.3 -1.1 18 Tunisia 100.5 3,903 36.0 -1.1 19 Bulgaria 100.5 6,546 49.5 -0.1 20 Ukraine 100.5 3,899 61.0 0.9 21 India 100.4 1,017 49.5 0.3 22 China 100.4 3,267 39.8 -0.3 23 Latvia 100.4 14,908 34.3 -1.1 24 Vietnam 100.4 1,051 50.7 0.8 25 Venezuela 100.4 11,246 32.6 -1.0 26 Portugal 100.4 22,923 28.6 -1.8 27 Saudi Arabia 100.3 19,022 25.1 -1.8 28 Kazakhstan 100.3 8,513 44.7 0.1 29 Uzbekistan 100.3 1,023 34.7 -0.3 30 Russia 100.3 11,832 34.4 -0.7 31 Mexico 100.3 10,232 34.0 -0.5 32 Indonesia 100.2 2,246 47.9 1.0 33 Croatia 100.2 15,637 30.1 -0.9 34 Peru 100.2 4,477 31.8 -0.3 35 Greece 100.2 31,670 38.3 -0.7 36 Belarus 100.1 6,230 42.3 0.8 37 Slovenia 100.1 27,019 25.8 -1.3 38 Syria 100.1 2,682 47.9 1.5 39 Turkey 100.1 9,942 35.2 0.2 40 South Korea 100.1 19,115 23.1 -0.9 41 Colombia 100.1 5,416 28.0 0.0 42 South Africa 100.0 5,678 25.0 -0.1 43 Serbia 100.0 6,811 44.8 1.4 44 Czech Republic 100.0 20,673 27.4 -0.4 45 Lithuania 100.0 14,098 41.1 1.1 46 Guatemala 99.9 2,848 37.1 1.3 47 Slovakia 99.9 18,212 22.3 -0.4 48 Poland 99.9 13,845 32.1 0.7 49 Singapore 99.9 37,597 21.9 -1.0 50 Kuwait 99.9 54,260 30.0 -1.1 51 UK 99.8 43,541 22.5 -1.0 52 Israel 99.8 27,652 17.7 -0.5 53 Japan 99.7 38,455 19.8 -0.6 54 Italy 99.7 38,492 22.1 -0.3 55 Thailand 99.6 4,043 39.0 2.7 56 Hungary 99.6 15,408 29.4 1.6 57 Sweden 99.5 51,950 17.4 -0.7 58 Finland 99.5 51,323 20.5 -0.5 59 Germany 99.5 44,446 18.5 -0.3 60 Spain 99.5 35,215 21.8 0.4 61 Austria 99.5 49,599 19.5 -0.3 62 Ecuador 99.5 4,056 30.6 2.5 63 Switzerland 99.5 64,327 24.0 -0.5 64 Malaysia 99.5 8,209 37.1 2.9 65 France 99.5 44,508 22.0 0.2 66 Brazil 99.5 8,205 20.8 1.8 67 United States 99.3 46,350 13.7 0.2 68 Canada 99.3 45,070 18.0 0.6 69 Australia 99.2 47,370 19.7 1.1 70 Belgium 99.2 47,085 15.9 0.9 71 Chile 99.1 10,084 22.5 3.1 72 Ireland 99.1 60,460 25.8 1.5 73 Norway 99.0 94,759 16.9 -0.6 74 Luxembourg 99.0 109,903 19.1 -1.0 75 Costa Rica 98.9 6,564 30.6 4.7 76 Netherlands 98.9 52,963 13.3 1.6` 77 Denmark 98.8 62,118 16.8 1.8 78 Argentina 98.7 8,236 33.4 5.6 79 Uruguay 98.5 9,654 25.3 5.6 80 New Zealand 97.7 30,439 18.8 7.5 As should be noted, there are countries outside of MENA with extremely high percentages of spending on food.

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