Greece would have lead the world on this front, but since it is part of the Euro, instead of currency problems they have been rewarded for years on end high unemployment and low wages. With 45% below poverty line, its a powder keg.
Venezuela is having severe issues, with reports of toilet paper shortages, The antics of the government are amazing. Many of the knee jerk reactions of price control and government annexing merchants who refuse to sell goods at a loss is par for the course. What amazes me more is this tactic never works, so it must be good to do yet again.
Argentina is also having currency problems, with yet again many government antics taking place. Argentina has had their currency collapse quite a few times in the last 70 years. You'd think that they would have figured out how to handle it better by now. Government BANNING imports and IRON FIST for merchants who refuse to sell goods at a loss. 50% internet tax, food price fixing, etc. Good luck with that!
Ukraine has imposed a 6 day waiting period for foreign currency purchases with additional capitol controls instituted. When I read this what I see is the super rich in that country will continue to drain their wealth out of the country while the common person remains TRAPPED with their devaluing money. This gives the rich more time to exit with more of their wealth preserved. When such actions are taken, everyone in that country should apply to exchange money since they have no clue what 6 days will look like.
Brazil and Russia are having their interest rates rise for cost of government bonds and they don't like it. The solution? Don't hold bond auctions! While in some aspects this is reasonable, if you don't issue debt over time the debt should become scarce, lowering the premium. But without me doing any research, I am going to take a wild guess those countries did not unilaterally cut spending to match this action. Assuming I am correct, they are going to need to auction off bonds to pay people at some point. Or they can follow USA central bank and simply have their central bank buy their bonds. In any event, I hardly think world opinion for bond games like america can do will go over well for those currencies. Rising rates = potential currency run.
Turkey currency the lira has been devaluing quickly under currency fears. That has in turn lead to yet again, capital flight. Imagine that, those who can move wealth out to safety, do. This has sparked a real estate sale in Turkey. Once these things light, its pretty hard to put out.
Europe Union under the Euro has been and continues to be a challenge. Spain, Portugal, and Italy have very challenged economies. Greece's debt is NOT the worst as a percent of GDP in Europe, I put a nice graph at end of this post to show how the debt monster is starting to turn it's head.
China bank HSBC for a short period was instituting capital controls to restrict money flow. That was quickly overturned once it hit mainstream media to avoid a panic. This is a tell. Why did they do this? Because there are issues that people are trying to 'help' by slowing the flow of money. It doesn't matter they overturned it, there is something not right.
Bottom line people is this is not normal, we are entering the phase I stated in Global Currency Shakedown, Round 4 begins in October that things continue to move along nicely for the next phase of this now 5 1/2 year crisis. I believe gold will fare well early, but I am starting to realize the end game is we all go to crypto currencies like Bitcoin. I have started to open accounts and move money as an experiment into Bitcoin and Litecoin and start familiarizing myself with crypto currencies. I stated back in Jan 2011 in post 'power to the people' that the best thing for the world is to go to crypto currencies. There are now 83 crypto currencies and growing, there will be winners and losers. I can't see how Bitcoin loses in the near term so for the short term one of the safer places. I'll do a post on this in more detail later, I highly recommend you listen to this podcast. Thanks to Mike C for the link!
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