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.
