A Global Recession Is Coming... and It Won't Be Pretty

SYRACUSE, Sicily – “When in doubt, go to Italy” is the saying.

We are always in doubt. What better place to go?

Today, a warning about why a global recession is now likely.

But first, an update on Sicily… where we’ve spent the last few days exploring.

Sicily is not exactly Italy. It sits in the middle of the Mediterranean, where every sleepy sailor or ambitious empire builder was bound to wash up. The Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Spanish, and French – all tried their hands at ruling Sicily. The Italians are only the most recent of the invaders.

A Visit to the Temples

We rented a little Fiat 500 to explore the island. It lacks power, but it is perfect for zipping around in tight places.

Yesterday, we visited Greek and Roman ruins. The Valley of the Temples at Agrigento is a marvel. It has one of the best preserved Greek temples in the world.

About two hours away is a Roman villa with some of the best frescoes ever discovered. Apparently, they were buried in a mudslide and were thus preserved for 1,000 years.

The Sicily that we’ve seen so far is remarkably open. Rocky mountains, open fields, vast pastures – there is little shade. It must be excruciatingly hot in summer. If we were running things, we’d plant more trees.

Still, it is nice to be able to see so much countryside as we are driving around. One thing we’ve noticed is that there are thousands of abandoned houses – large stone farmhouses – all over the island. The small towns, too, are depopulated.

In the large towns – Syracuse and Palermo, for example – you see many recent immigrants from Africa and India. But the small towns and rural areas seem to be losing people, leaving houses empty.

Between Scylla and Charybdis

More about Sicily in a moment…

Back in the markets, the Dow rose 200 points – or just over 1% – on Friday.

And commodities giant Glencore recovered most of its week’s losses. The fright of a few weeks ago seems to have diminished. It is “back to normal” — almost.

Stocks and bonds still trade at silly prices. Shills from Wall Street still “talk their books” on TV. And the Fed is still promising a rate hike – perhaps before the end of the year.

This rate hike talk is either believed or not. To the extent it is believed, it is disastrous in the short run. To the extent it is not believed, it is disastrous in the long run.

A rate hike (or even the anticipation of higher interest rates) in the U.S. drives investors to dollars. This raises the price of dollars for holders of foreign currency.

Anyone who owes dollars and can’t print them at will – in particular, governments and corporations in the emerging markets – is in a rough spot.

And when you put debtors between Scylla and Charybdis – that is, between a rock and a hard place – many of them are bound to run aground.

Here Come Negative Interest Rates

The U.S. dollar is the funding currency for the world economy.

When the exchange value of the dollar goes up, it is another way of saying dollars are scarce. And when dollars are scarce, world trade tends to go down.

In other words, it creates a situation opposite to the EZ money the Fed has been aiming for.

We see the effects of this already. Sales of the yellow machines – backhoes, loaders, bulldozers, etc. – have been falling for three years. Containerized freight coming from China is down 30% since 2013. The world economy is slowing down. A global recession is now in the cards. (More on this below in today’s Market Insight…)

On the other hand, if you don’t believe the Fed will raise rates – which we don’t – it sets up a further thought. The Fed did not raise rates at its last meeting for a reason. It must see the problem developing in the world economy, as we do. And it must realize that its policy goal must be to lower the price of the dollar, not raise it.

Our prediction: The Fed will come forward, not to praise the dollar with higher interest rates, but to bury it with a negative-interest-rate policy (NIRP)… a ban on cash… or “whatever it takes.” It is all coming… along with bigger and even more reckless bubbles.

Crooked Deals

But let’s forget the Fed for a moment…

We landed in Palermo on Friday. The city has a bad reputation.

“People don’t like Palermo, because it was controlled by the Mafia,” explained a taxi driver.

“They made crooked deals and built all these ugly apartment buildings you see on the outskirts of town. Many times, they had to tear down ancient buildings that had been there for hundreds of years.”

It was true that there are ugly apartment buildings in the hills surrounding Palermo. But it looked to us like almost any other town. The apartment buildings that the Mafia built were no uglier than those built by the democratically elected government of Baltimore.

“How was it to live in a town run by the Mafia?” we wondered.

“It wasn’t so bad. They killed people who threatened them – but besides that the Mafia ran a fairly decent government.

“There wasn’t much crime. If someone stole something from you, you could usually go to the Mafia and they’d get it back for you.”

More to come…

Regards,

Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning

Originally posted at Bill Bonner’s Diary, right here.

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