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A reader sent me a link to the following today:

Why 2017 Could See the Collapse of the Euro

Europe has not been doing well. Just this year, GDP per capita for the Eurozone as a whole finally returned to pre-crisis levels. It is claiming victory in Spain—even though unemployment remains near 20% and youth unemployment is more than twice that—simply because things are better today than they have been since the euro crisis began a half decade ago. Greece remains in a severe depression. Growth for the Eurozone over the past year has been an anemic 1.6%, and that number is twice the average growth rate from 2005 to 2015. Historians are already speaking of the Eurozone’s lost decade, and it’s possible they’ll soon be writing about its last decade, too. …

The hope was that fiscal and monetary discipline would result in convergence,enabling the single-currency system to work even better. Instead, there has been divergence, with the rich countries getting richer and the poor getting poorer, and within countries, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. But it was the very structure of the Eurozone that predictably led to this. …

There is a huge gap in perceptions of what makes for good policies, especially between Germany and much of the rest of Europe.  …

The ambition of the euro was to bring greater prosperity to Europe. This, in turn, would promote economic and political integration. The euro was a political project, but the politics weren’t strong enough to create the institutional arrangements that would ensure success. With the euro leading to stagnation and worse, it is no surprise that it has led to increasing divisiveness rather than to more solidarity. Today, it seems that the euro, which was supposed to be a means to an end, has become an end in itself—the pursuit of which poses perhaps the single most important threat to the European project. …

In order for a single currency system to work, there has to be more Europe—more solidarity; more willingness of the stronger countries to help the weaker; more willingness to create institutions like a common deposit insurance and a common unemployment scheme—than the current halfway house, which is simply not viable. But the failures of the Eurozone make such reforms increasingly hard. It is at least as likely that the political forces are going in the other direction, and if that is the case, it may be only a matter of time before Europe looks back on the euro as an interesting, well-intentioned experiment that failed—at great cost to the citizens of Europe and their democracies. http://fortune.com/2016/12/30/euro-outlook-2017/

While it is true that Europe is not that integrated, the goal of EU leaders is to work towards that integration.

The Bible says that a European power will arise, despite not being well unified:

41 Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. 42 And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. 43 As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. (Daniel 2:41-43)

As far as the Euro goes, notice that at least one French politician is opposed to it:

January 4, 2017

French presidential candidate and National Front leader, Marine Le Pen, said she wants to take France out of the euro, reiterating comments made the day before, and – taking a page out of the Yanis Varoufakis Grexit negotiating strategy playbook – added she wants to redenominate French government debt in a new national currency.

“More and more European citizens realize their economies have been suffocated by the euro,” she told reporters on the sidelines of a press conference in Paris quoted by Bloomberg.

Additionally, following the British example. Le Pen said that before leaving the euro, she would hold a referendum on France’s relations with the European Union and has pledged to hold such a vote within six months of an election victory.

“A national currency could be linked to a common currency,” she added, without giving further details on the connection. She said she could see the EU setting up another currency like the ECU, or European Currency Unit, which the bloc used for internal accounting purposes before the euro was introduced in 1999.

As Politico noted overnight, the National Front chief has long called for “Frexit,” a French withdrawal from the European Union. This would happen after a referendum on EU membership if she was elected next May (Le Pen has suggested that she would step down if the French rejected her preferred outcome). http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-04/marine-le-pen-wants-france-out-euro-will-redenominate-french-debt-new-currency

Could the Euro be replaced. Possibly.  Back in 2009, in my “2012′ book, I wrote:

It would seem that once the U.S. dollar totally collapses people all around the world will consider that even if the Euro is strong, having a more gold-backed currency would be safer.  Having the European power acquiring a lot more gold to back the Euro (even if the backing is only implied) or possibly other future European currency (that might potentially replace the Euro) may greatly increase European credibility, prosperity, and influence around the globe.

Well, Europe will unify even if the Euro were to be replaced. That does not mean that Europe will not have problems (Daniel 2:40-43). A little while back, we put together a video titled: Chaotic ‘State of the European Union.’

Irrespective of what writers and politicians may or may not believe, the Bible tells of reorganization and cooperation coming to Europe:

12 “The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. 13 These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. (Revelation 17:12-13)

Zero Hedge posted the following:

What 12 ‘Financial Experts’ Predict For The Economy in 2017 (Spoiler Alert: It’s Ugly)

January 4, 2017

I’ve said that President-Elect Trump is inheriting a mess of epic proportionsand that we may still be in for a rough financial ride. While I do think that Trump is a far better choice than Hillary Clinton ever could have been, when a situation has been declining as long as ours has, it would take an absolute miracle to turn it around without some pain.And it turns out, I’m not alone in my concern about the worst for our economic situation during the upcoming year.

Here’s what 12 prominent financial experts are predicting.

Lawrence Yun is the chief economist at The National Association of Realtors® (NAR).

“The budget of many prospective buyers last month was dealt an abrupt hit by the quick ascension of rates immediately after the election. Already faced with climbing home prices and minimal listings in the affordable price range, fewer home shoppers in most of the country were successfully able to sign a contract.” (source)

Gerald Celente is a trends forecaster who has a long history of accuracy. You can find his work at TrendsResearch.com. He predicts:

“We’re forecasting the economy is not going to rebound with the economic proposals that are in place now. . . . The global situation has created an environment for financial panic. The financial panic conditions have been in place for quite a while. What Trump’s victory has done is played it off for a little bit possibly, but on the negative side, you still have the debt and interest rates going up and the debt that has to be paid. On gold, we believe right now is near its bottom.” (source)

James Dale Davidson. He’s the economist who correctly predicted the collapse of 1999 and 2007.

“There are three key economic indicators screaming SELL. They don’t imply that a 50% collapse is looming – it’s already at our doorstep.” (source)

Marc Faber is an investment advisor and fund manager. He is the publisher of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report newsletter and is the director of Marc Faber Ltd. Last month, he wrote:

“2017 will be [when] the US Economic causes a World Economic Collapse! Trump can’t stop a dollar crisis, stock mark crash or gold and silver prices skyrocketing! “. (source)

Faber was also quoted in an article on The Sovereign Investor:

Mark Faber, Dr. Doom himself, recently told CNBC that “investors are on the Titanic” and stocks are about to “endure a gut-wrenching drop that would rival the greatest crashes in stock market history.” (source)

Harry Dent, Harvard economist, predicts the safe-haven of gold will be wiped out during 2017. From a conversation with Economy and Markets:

“While many economists will argue that gold is not in a bubble… and insist it will soar to $2,000, $5,000 and even $10,000, my research has said otherwise…I’ve never been more certain of anything in over 30 years of economic forecasting.”

Incidentally, here is his latest report.

Ann Rutledge is a fixed income analyst who is a regular writer for Forbes. She analyses economic patterns and feels the slide has been underway since 2013. Last year, she wrote:

“So, if you ask me whether we are going to have another global financial crisis in 2017…I would say the odds are good. This one probably started in 2013 and by now is well under way.” (source)

Peter Costa, president of Empire Executions, has taken the unprecedented step of pulling out of the markets ,believing that they are overpriced and that a major correction is on the way. In an interview, he said:

“I think that a lot of these stocks, big cap, small cap, they all got ahead of themselves. And I think that there will be a correction to bring them back to some sort of normalization in pricing and once it gets back there, I’ll be back in the market.” (source)

Chris Martenson, an economic researcher, wrote:

“GDP growth is very unlikely to support the rate of credit expansion that the Federal Reserve wants (or, more accurately, needs). And what will happen if it indeed doesn’t? A lot of painful, awful things – but central among them is a currency crisis...” (source)

Michael Covel, a teacher of trend-following and financial strategy ,thinks the collapse will start in Europe and then spread to the rest of the world. He explains why in great detail, calling it chillingly “the next Lehman moment.”

“Deutsche Bank has startling leverage of 40 times. Leverage is the proportion of debts that a bank has compared with its equity/capital. That means Deutsche has 40 times more debt than equity/capital. Keep in mind that Lehman Bros. was only 31 times leveraged when it imploded in 2008 and sparked the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression…France’s clear discontent with the EU can’t be overstated. The EU might survive Brexit. But a French divorce from the EU would be cataclysmic, both financially and politically. It would mark the official end of the EU.

…Bank runs would spread as consumers sought the safety of cash well before the actual earth-shattering event took place. It would start in French banks… and the knock-on effects would spread to other European banks that have relationships with French banks. This would create a huge decline in confidence, leading to a European-wide decline in bank lending… (source)

Alessandro Lombardi, a former global investment banking analyst wrote:

“Emerging markets are the soft underbelly of the global economy. Many analysts expect the election of Donald Trump to the White House will change the United States’ economic and monetary policies. This could worsen conditions for businesses in emerging markets that are financed in U.S. dollars. The result might be a global economic collapse in 2017.” (source)

Jim Rogers, who founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros, is on the record as saying:

“A $68 trillion ‘Biblical’ collapse is poised to wipe out millions of Americans.” (source)

 Andrew Smithers, an economist with an unsettling history of being prophetic, was quoted in the same article.

“U.S. stocks are now about 80% overvalued.” Smithers backs up his prediction using a ratio which proves that the only time in history stocks were this risky was 1929 and 1999. And we all know what happened next. Stocks fell by 89% and 50%, respectively. (source)

What do you think?

Personally, I’m prepping harder than ever before. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-03/what-12-financial-experts-predict-economy-2017-spoiler-alert-its-ugly

While physical preparations can be helpful, that is not where people should place their confidence:

24 Then Jesus said unto his disciples, If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross {Gr. stauros – stake} and follow me. 25 For whosoever desires to save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. 26 For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matthew 16:24-26, Jubilee Bible)

As far as the economy goes for 2017, it will have ups and downs. The stock market is unstable. Expect economic disruptions. Expect the USA to increase its national debt. We are in the period of time Jesus referred to as the ‘beginning of sorrows’ (Matthew 24:4-8) and there will be ‘troubles’ (Mark 13:8).

This does NOT mean that the idea of European unity will occur in 2017 or that the dollar of the USA will collapse then.

As far as the Great Tribulation goes, you can check out our sermonette-length video Will the Great Tribulation Start in 2017?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 4th, 2017 at 8:00 am and is filed under Prophecy.

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