"We Face a Profound Geopolitical Recession"

The dude was the keynote speaker yesterday at the Schwab IMPACT Conference in San Diego.

He says a severe geopolitical recession is coming.

"Hey Dennis, this is America!  We don't have geopolitical recessions!  It doesn't matter one smidgeon whether Donald or Hillary is elected!  It doesn't matter if Syria collapses or Europe is over run by refugees from the Middle East....life as we know it today in America will never change!....cuz this is America!...oops...guess I already said that."

The world will enter a geo-political “recession,” according to Ian Bremmer, resulting in a large list of failed states. The U.S. will be relatively insulated from that crisis, but faces its own challenges driven by globalization and wealth inequality.

Bremmer is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, a leading global political risk research and consulting firm. He delivered a keynote address yesterday at the Schwab IMPACT conference in San Diego. It is the industry’s largest conference, with approximately 2,000 advisor attendees.

“We are used to boom-and-bust cycles,” he said, “like recessions every seven to eight years. But we don’t talk about geopolitical recessions, because the cycles are much longer.” Bremmer said the last time the world fell apart was after World War II. When it did, we rebuilt the world with U.S.-based values and standards – indeed, he said, globalization became Americanization.

Now we are entering a period of profound geo-political recession, according to Bremmer.

The U.S. will not be badly affected, nor will be Japan or China. To understand why, consider the U.S. approach to the risk of terrorism, which is part of what is driving the geopolitical recession. Terrorism is a problem in the U.S., Bremmer said, but nowhere close to the concern it is in Europe, which is nowhere close to the level of concern in the Middle East. Angela Merkel, who Bremmer said is the strongest leader in Europe, took the lead in the refugee crisis. That was “massively courageous,” he said, but can’t be called leadership, since nobody followed her. Merkel offered to pay Turkey to keep refugees, he said, after German citizens pushed back when she tried to increase immigration.

The Middle East could count on oil money and stable populations, according to Bremmer. Now, OPEC has been “fundamentally destroyed,” he said, and the U.S. is no longer willing to provide military support to those countries. As a result, popular unrest will turn Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan into failed states, among others.

“The biggest refugee crisis and the worst terrorist organization in history are not a problem for the U.S., China and Japan,” he said.

The challenge, according to Bremmer, is that there is no pressure on U.S., China or Japan to do anything about the refugee and terrorism crises. As a result, there is no support for the TPP and an “America first” attitude has gained popularity.

Bremmer said the recent criticisms of the U.S. by Philippine President Duterte were similar to events in the U.K. a year ago. The U.S. pressured the U.K. to not join the China-led infrastructure bank, because it would compete with the U.S.-led World Bank. But the U.K. joined anyway to show the Chinese that they were independent of the U.S., he said, and to encourage China to invest in U.K. nuclear facilities.

The Philippines looked at South China Sea and saw that America was turning away from the region, according to Bremmer, and said “let’s get on board with the Chinese.”

The U.S. is stable and not in decline, according to Bremmer. China will be the largest economy in 10 years but we will have by far the best military and will be the leading producer of food and energy. “This is not a bad story for the U.S.,” he said.

“But our footprint globally is decreasing,” he said. “Our allies are looking for alternatives, and the one that is at the forefront is China.”

Bremmer predicted that regions will align and cohere based on what regional powers want. Russia will drive integration based on its security and energy needs. China will drive integration in Asia, he said.

“If you are investing in China or, say, South Korea you will see a fragmentation of globalization,” Bremmer said. Companies that do business with China will tilt away from the dollar to the renminbi. The IT sector, which was the most globalized, will become the most fragmented, he said. For example, Lockheed Martin won’t be able to sell to markets that are unfriendly to the U.S., according to Bremmer. Bremmer said that this is already happening now to Facebook, Google and Amazon.

“Big multi-national companies will have to think strategically about geopolitics,” Bremmer said.

A few Middle Eastern countries will survive, he predicted, but most will fall apart. Europe “got too big,” he said, and will get smaller; functional integration (harmonized regulations and freedom of movement) will happen only among the core European countries (Germany, France, Spain, Italy and a few other), but will not extend to the U.K. or eastern Europe. Latin America will “move back to the U.S.,” he said, and toward free markets, which will make them a better place to invest.

Read it here;  http://www.advisorperspectives.com/articles/2016/10/26/ian-bremmer-we-face-a-profound-geopolitical-recession

"See!  I told you Dennis!  Even this guy says that the U.S. will not be "badly affected" when the world starts to fall apart!....so quit being so gloomy."

Let's look at a possible scenario for the world WHEN the rapture of the church happens.  Let's say that this guy is correct and nations start to fail around the world.  Somewhere into that epic failure let's say that the trumpet sounds and all followers of Christ are snatched off this planet in the twinkling of an eye.  So let's say 10-20% of Americans are gone.  Business owners, mortgage holders, real estate owners, nurses, doctors, military generals, soldiers and Christians from all walks of life are instantly gone!  There can be no doubt that America will be greatly affected when this happens.

Now the world has already been shaken and America starts a sudden collapse.

It would now seem like everything would be in place for the AntiChrist to be revealed and take his place on the world stage and announce his rapid plan to bring the shattered world back into order.  He will say that the world needs to have a common currency and a global government if mankind has any hope of surviving.  And of course the world will readily comply...because what choice will they have?

Of course we have no idea if this is how things will play out....but it is an interesting scenario to ponder.

As Jan Markell likes to say, "The world isn't falling apart....everything is just falling into place."