SURVEYING THE HEADLINES MAKES ME WONDER: IS THE WORLD HEADED OVER A CLIFF?

CURRENT HEADLINES:

RIOTING IN VENEZUELA, UKRAINE, AND THAILAND... INSTABILITY IN GREECE, ITALY - FRANCE FLOUNDERING... CHINA'S HOUSE OF CARDS MAY BE ABOUT TO FALL, BUT THEIR SABER-RATTLING IS ON THE RISE... GOLD IS UP 7% THIS YEAR... TALIBAN RISING IN AFGHANISTAN.... AL QAEDA RISING IN LIBYA AND SYRIA AND IRAQ AND THE VIOLENCE IS ON THE RISE IN EGYPT.... TURKEY IS EDGING TOWARD TOTALITARIANISM.... ARGENTINA IS ABOUT TO COLLAPSE.... IRAN ABOUT TO GET A NUKE.... KIM JUNG UN UNBRIDLED... THE US ECONOMY IS SLIPPING BACK INTO THE ABYSS - PROPPED UP ONLY BY THE FED'S QE.....

IS THERE SOMETHING SOMEWHERE GOING RIGHT AND DOING WELL???

HERE'S AN ECONOMIC LIST VIA TYLER:

The following are 20 signs that the global economic crisis is starting to catch fire...#1 The unemployment rate in Greece has hit a brand new record high of28 percent.
#2 The youth unemployment rate in Greece has hit a brand new record high of 64.1 percent.
#3 The percentage of bad loans in Italy is at an all-time record high.
#4 Italian industrial output declined again in December, and the Italian government is on the verge of collapse.
#5 The number of jobseekers in France has risen for 30 of the last 32 months, and at this point it has climbed to a new all-time record high.
#6 The total number of business failures in France in 2013 was even higher than in any year during the last financial crisis.
#7 It is being projected that housing prices in Spain will fall another 10 to 15 percent as their economic depression deepens.
#8 The economic and political turmoil in Turkey is spinning out of control.  The government has resorted to blasting protesters with pepper spray and water cannons in a desperate attempt to restore order.
#9 It is being estimated that the inflation rate in Argentina is now over 40 percent, and the peso is absolutely collapsing.
#10 Gangs of armed bandits are roaming the streets in Venezuela as the economic chaos in that troubled nation continues to escalate.
#11 China appears to be very serious about deleveraging.  The deflationary effects of this are going to be felt all over the planet. The following is an excerpt from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's recent article entitled "World asleep as China tightens deflationary vice"...

China's Xi Jinping has cast the die. After weighing up the unappetising choice before him for a year, he has picked the lesser of two poisons.
The balance of evidence is that most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong aims to prick China's $24 trillion credit bubble early in his 10-year term, rather than putting off the day of reckoning for yet another cycle.
This may be well-advised for China, but the rest of the world seems remarkably nonchalant over the implications.
#12 There was a significant debt default by a coal company in Chinalast Friday...

A high-yield investment product backed by a loan to a debt-ridden coal company failed to repay investors when it matured last Friday, state media reported on Wednesday, in the latest sign of financial stress in China's shadow bank sector.#13 Japan's Nikkei stock index has already fallen by 14 percent so far in 2014.  That is a massive decline in just a month and a half.
#14 Ukraine continues to fall apart financially...

The worsening political and economic circumstances in Ukraine has prompted the Fitch Ratings agency to downgrade Ukrainian debt from B to a pre–default level CCC. This is lower than Greece, and Fitch warns of future financial instability.
#15 The unemployment rate in Australia has risen to the highest levelin more than 10 years.
#16 The central bank of India is in a panic over the way that Federal Reserve tapering is effecting their financial system.
#17 The effects of Federal Reserve tapering are also being felt in Thailand...

In the wake of the US Federal Reserve tapering, emerging economies with deteriorating macroeconomic figures or visible political instability are being punished by skittish markets. Thailand is drifting towards both these tendencies.
#18 One of Ghana's most prominent economists says that the economy of Ghana will crash by June if something dramatic is not done.
#19 Yet another banker has mysteriously died during the prime years of his life.  That makes five "suspicious banker deaths" in just the past two weeks alone.
#20 The behavior of the U.S. stock market continues to parallel the behavior of the U.S. stock market in 1929.
Yes, things don't look good right now, but it is important to keep in mind that this is just the beginning.
This is just the leading edge of the next great financial storm.
The next two years (2014 and 2015) are going to represent a major "turning point" for the global economy.  By the end of 2015, things are going to look far different than they do today.
None of the problems that caused the last financial crisis have been fixed.  Global debt levels have grown by 30 percent since the last financial crisis, and the too big to fail banks in the United States are 37 percent larger than they were back then and their behavior has becomeeven more reckless than before.
As a result, we are going to get to go through another "2008-style crisis", but I believe that this next wave is going to be even worse than the previous one.
So hold on tight and get ready.  We are going to be in for quite a bumpy ride.

BUMPY RIDE? AT BEST!