Global equity market turmoil following the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the EU is not the cause of the Panic of 2016 that we had forecast as our Top Trend of 2016, it is the trigger point.
By Gerald Celente, trend forecaster, Trends Research Institute | Republished with permission
While “Leave” advocates pushed migration and its implications as their rallying cry – UK citizens losing jobs to lower-paid migrants and the nation losing its identity– the far-reaching impact is both socioeconomic and geopolitical.
Beyond the UK, as evidenced by Sunday’s vote in Italy when The 5 Star Movement won the Rome mayoral race, the strength of Le Pen’s party in France, the AFD in Germany, the Freedom Party in Austria, etc., there is widespread disgust with the entrenched ruling parties that have been running most European nations since the end of WW II.
In fact, following the Brexit vote, many populist European parties immediately pledged to launch similar referendums.
However, as detailed in our “Panic of 2016” trend forecast, the growing political discontent is driven by an undercurrent of economic realities of a global recession and its implications on the 99 percent. By all quantitative measures, since the Panic of ’08, the strategies and actions taken by the central banks to restore economic growth have failed.
Central Bank Sayonara
Bigger than Brexit, we forecast yesterday’s “Leave” vote signals the beginning of the end of the European Union and the death of the European Central Bank.
As socioeconomic conditions deteriorate, they will expose the fundamentally flawed nature of global central banks, whose polices rewarded equity market investors at the expense of Main Street savers.
On the grander geopolitical scale, as nations seek independence from central government control, economic and political chaos will accelerate between the status quo and the agents of change.
While the UK vote to leave was 52 to 48 percent, it would have been much greater had it not been for the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox who, as Prime Minister David Cameron had tweeted, was a “strong voice in the campaign to remain in the EU and will be badly missed.”
In addition, a steady pro-Remain media bombardment from global dignitaries flooded the airwaves. From President Obama to Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe, from IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde to Wall Street’s best and brightest … they all championed Remain … hysterically warning of end-of-world consequences if UK citizens voted to leave the holy alter of the almighty, infallible European Union.
Trend Forecast: Equity markets may rebound following today’s sell off since it was widely reported prior to the vote that Central Banks and government entities had plans in place to prevent catastrophic drops in market values should Brexit succeed.
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However, as our deep fact based analysis concludes, the fundamentals of the global economy are not sound. Again, The Panic is on. No, Brexit won’t shock the world into recession as The Street is now warning. A global recession is already underway and central banks have run out of tricks to re-inflate it.
We had accurately forecast gold to exceed $1,300 per ounce and maintain that when gold breaks $1,400 per ounce and stabilize above it, prices will spike to $2,000 per ounce.
By Gerald Celente, trend forecaster, Trends Research Institute