Watchman Newsletter

Warning Signs That We Should Prepare For The Worst

2012-01-18T11:11:00-08:00

The warning signs are all around us. All we have to do is open up our eyes and look at them. Almost every single day there are more prominent voices in the financial world telling us that a massive economic crisis is coming and that we need to prepare for the worst. On Wednesday, it was the World Bank itself that issued a very chilling warning. In an absolutely startling report, the World Bank revised GDP growth estimates for 2012 downward very sharply, warned that Europe could be on the verge of a devastating financial crisis, and declared that the rest of the world better “prepare for the worst.” You would expect to hear this kind of thing on The Economic Collapse Blog, but this is not the kind of language that you would normally expect to hear from the stuffed suits at the World Bank. Obviously things have gotten bad enough that nobody is even really trying to deny it anymore. Andrew Burns, the lead author of the report, said that if the sovereign debt crisis gets even worse we could be looking at an economic crisis that could be even worse than the last one: “An escalation of the crisis would spare no-one. Developed- and developing-country growth rates could fall by as much or more than in 2008/09.” Burns also stated that the “importance of contingency planning cannot be stressed enough.” In other words, Burns is saying that it is time to prepare for the worst. So are you ready? But of course it isn’t just the World Bank that is warning about these things. The chorus of voices that is warning about the next great financial crisis just seems to grow by the day. Some of these voices were profiled in a Bloomberg article the other day entitled “Apocalypse How? Dire ’12 Forecasts.” The following is just a sampling of quotes from that article....

Syrian ‘chemical, biological’ weapons concern Israel

2012-01-17T11:07:00-08:00

Israel has serious concerns about what will happen to “huge stockpiles” of chemical and biological weapons in Syria when the Assad regime collapses, a senior military official said on Tuesday. Major-General Amir Eshel, head of the Israeli military’s planning division, said the working assumption was the regime of President Bashar Assad would eventually fall. “The question is when, not if. And the big question is what’s going to come the day after,” he said. “The immediate concern is the huge stockpiles of chemicals, biologicals (weapons), strategic capabilities that are still going into Syria, mainly from eastern Europe,” Eshel said. “That’s a major concern because I don’t know who is going to own those the day after. Up till now, what has been transferred to Hezbollah? What will be transferred to Hezbollah? What will be divided between those factions inside Syria? What is that going to create? “We are talking about huge stockpiles,” he said.

Libyan weapons flowing to terrorists: Israeli prime minister warns about missile threat

2012-01-16T12:56:00-08:00

Libyan weapons are being smuggled into the Gaza Strip through the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned yesterday. Addressing the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Netanyahu warned “Libyan arms continue to flow into Gaza through Sinai.” He indicated that there were “more than 10,000 missiles” in Gaza, some of which had a range “surpassing 40 kilometres (24 miles).” Just last week, KleinOnline was first to report Libyan rebels are selling large quantities of weaponry to Palestinian terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli security sources. The sources noted the weapons were seized after the regime of late Libyan leader Moammar Qadhafi was toppled by rebel fighters with help from the U.S-led NATO bombing campaign. The weapons include French and Saudi munitions and equipment seized by the rebel gangs, the sources said. The weapons are being sold to the Gazan groups Hamas, the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees and the al-Qaida-affiliated Jihadiya Salafia, said the sources.