Mauldin overview of Europe's problems -- a great read!

Long overview from http://www.johnmauldin.com/frontlinethoughts/where-is-the-ecb-printing-press that's worth reading.

Where Can I Find €3 Trillion?

First, for the record, the European issue is not a crisis of confidence, as Merkel and Sarkozy, et al., keep telling us. It is structural. And until the structural issues are dealt with, the problems will not be solved.

Economist prediction chart

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/11/poll-forecasters

" What our polls forecast for 2011 GDP growth and inflation

EVERY month The Economist surveys a group of economists and records the average and range of their predictions for GDP growth, consumer prices and the current-account balances for 14 economies (see this month's poll). The charts below show our pollsters' monthly 2011 economic growth and inflation predictions for America, Japan and the euro area since March 2010. The evolution of the forecasts shows that as 2011 has progressed economists have been gradually becoming increasingly pessimistic about the fortunes of the American economy and its ability to fight inflation. A marked divergence is also noticeable in Japan after the Fukushima earthquake in April, while the outlook for GDP growth in the euro area had been slowly improving but has deteriorated over recent months. "

Nice Europe summary

brief summary on current state of EU, italy, spain, etc.

Economist -- nice overview

Excellent article -- worth a full read (it's not that long, even!)

last paragraph: In 2008 governments were credible backstops for their banks and the Fed, the central bank at the heart of the crisis, was willing to do everything it could to create confidence. Now the sovereigns are the problem and the ECB’s help is limited and conditional. That is the real horror film.

http://www.economist.com/node/21531467?fsrc=nlw|edh|09-29-11|editors_highlights

Prophets Of Doom: 12 Shocking Quotes + 1 I found

12 below, but here's another:  "The markets are focused on the imminent default by Greece. But, this is not the most important issue now. The historic development the markets have not priced in as that Germany is preparing to exit the Euro. The markets are very likely to have to contend with the re-introduction of Deutsche Marks in the near future. This is bound to mean a collapse in the value of the Euro for those countries that will remain in it (devaluation for the rest of Europe). This step may seem unthinkable but, I believe that the German government is telling us in multiple ways that there is no other solution from their point of view."
-- This is from Pippa Malmgren -- smart enough that she worked for the Bush White House (her bio)

From The Economic Collapse Blog (nice title) & reposted by zerohedge

The following are 12 shocking quotes from insiders that are warning about the horrific economic crisis that is almost here....

#1 George Soros: "Financial markets are driving the world towards another Great Depression with incalculable political consequences. The authorities, particularly in Europe, have lost control of the situation."

#2 PIMCO CEO Mohammed El-Erian: "These are all signs of an institutional run on French banks. If it persists, the banks would have no choice but to delever their balance sheets in a very drastic and disorderly fashion. Retail depositors would get edgy and be tempted to follow trading and institutional clients through the exit doors. Europe would thus be thrown into a full-blown banking crisis that aggravates the sovereign debt trap, renders certain another economic recession, and significantly worsens the outlook for the global economy."

European Banking crisis

another Ambrose Evans-Pritchard gem:

Central bank flight to Federal Reserve safety tops Lehman crisis

A key warning signal of global financial stress has shot above the extreme levels seen at the height of the Lehman crisis in 2008.

Cutout:

Data from the St Louis Fed shows that reserve funds from "official foreign accounts" have doubled since the start of the year, with a dramatic surge since the end of July when the eurozone debt crisis spread to Italy and Spain.

"This shows a pervasive loss of confidence in the European banking system," said Simon Ward from Henderson Global Investors. "Central banks are worried about the security of their deposits so they are placing the money with the Fed."

Europe Grinds to a Halt?

MoneyGame Chart of the Day

Europe Grinds To A Halt

Eurozone PMI plunged to a two-year low this morning, indicating a worse-than-expected slowdown and triggering declines for the euro on easing expectations.

Manufacturing PMI -- regarded as an early indicator of recession -- fell to 49.0 in August from 50.4 in July, indicating that while GDP is still expanding manufacturing is stalled.

According to Credit Suisse, inventories are at their highest since December 2008, but the lack of demand for goods means that manufacturers will probably have to cut production to reduce overhead in the months ahead. If we regard this orders-to-inventories statistic as an early indicator for manufacturing PMI and ISM, then we're likely to see these numbers slip further over the next few months

Greece, Portugal / Germany, France

articles, news & charts

China / Europe

China to Bail out Insolvent European Currencies via Zero Hedge (found @ Martenson's blog)

DANG!  Hard Core article about August, 2011 financial crisis from the Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin:

In this issue, we discuss the two most dangerous aspects of the Autumn 2011 shock, namely: . the detonating mechanism of European government debt . the explosion process of the US bomb in terms of government debts  

At the same time, in the context of the acceleration of the rebalancing of global power relationships, we introduce the anticipation of a fundamental geopolitical process for the holding of a Euro-BRICS summit by 2014.  

Finally, we focus our recommendations on the means of avoiding being part of the 15 trillion USD in ghost assets that will go up in smoke in the coming months, with a special mention for developments in real estate in Europe whose collapse we used to anticipate for 2015 will start in fact as early as 2012. 

So it's easy to put 2 and 2 together and assume that come 2012, China (with it's 2011 pullout of US debt), will start its European takeover.  Good times.