Greece's Unemployment is the direct result of a country that is so socialized over 40% of the population is directly tied to government payrolls and who's government subsidies lead to massive overspending which will inevitably bankrupt them, if not today, tomorrow. Democracy is not endanger yet, but capitalism has been long ago. In some sense, the best thing may be the opposition to win, destroy the last vestiges of their economy and then they can finally realize, this is no way to run a country or an economy, placing the blame on those who deserve it.

Interesting insight. We will see if your argument holds up in the next few months. Generally, I would tend to say yes in that there is increasing signaling that the economic cycle is turning despite Europe's mass QE printing shock which, like the US is suppose to make the stock market world giddy on even more newly printed money based on no real production or demand. Although one may not call it money printing, you can say the liquidity it creates is pretty much liar money caused by the reallocation or theft of value from those who had money in the first place. You could also call it a massive hidden tax.

LOL, not like the US and other players don't do the same thing with gold and silver. Paperized commodities are disconnected from reality until something drastic makes then pull their gambling somewhat into alignment. In the meantime, its to their advantaged to misalign real demand and their intentions in order to fleece the other speculators. The best bet in these market is not to trust anyone in these markets.

Yay, this will decrease the amount of garbage in the US more than all the bag-less grocery initiatives, lol.

Iran is a joke when it comes to de-dollarization. Their move is more about the US and allies banning them for developing nuclear weapons more than anything else.

China is a future heavyweight, or rather is an under recognized heavyweight already. The reason they aren't more powerful is that they don't allow the free float of their currency thus making their economy somewhat artificial and works against global capitalism. Talk to me about China's power when it engages in a free float and allows a free float of data and currency and then you may have a superpower. Right now it can compete but determines itself that it can't compete in free floating currency, cultural relevance, etc. without sowing discontent in their own country. Thus, Chinese government itself is the single biggest factor preventing China's rise.

That said, the US used to encourage freedom, democracy, and capitalism. Sadly, recently the US is instead promoting collective economic cheating and has laid down their sacred duty of supporting capitalism as they embrace more and more socialism at home and allows their banks engage in social cheats including corruption, state protection, off book accounting, and QE to the detriment of capitalism, fairness, and equity. Therein lies the weakness of the economy and decline of their international leadership. Sad.

Thanks for the summations, indeed debt is the central problem and many find it funny that more debt has been the promoted as the answer everyone is touting as the solution, rather that gradual unwinding which is the ultimate and natural solution.

Few dare to remember Apple was a company plagued by lack of vision and no leadership before Jobs. After Jobs he left a very shrewd operations manager that can hold Apple together, but it still needs vision, and innovation. You can get by with decent leadership and financial and operational sideshows for just so long. Apple is a tech company. Aside from bringing forth Job's last visions they have yet to produce anything innovative beyond Jobs. I hate to thing what will happen when they consider advancements in their OS which is built of Next computer code. What comes next after Next, lol.

Yawn. Double Yawn.

Analysts tend to be overoptimistic, backward looking and thus late to the party changes, are biased to be positive for their own careers, and incentivized to please companies rather than investors for access, to help their companies get bond and other deals even though they shouldn't, and potential future careers. Thus by the time they all turn negative you're looking at a real loser and probably should considering being positive on the sector.

LOL the first solution on Washington will be to protect the rich banker dufuses that lent the money to them. Sadly, I doubt a drop of extraordinary aid will reach those who moved to nowhere to dig for the black stuff.