The dramatic slowing of trade growth is serious and should serve as a wake-up call. It is particularly concerning in the context of growing anti-globalization sentiment.
by James Corbett
The International Forecaster
The same tinfoil crackpots that warned of the housing bubble last decade (and were promptly laughed at by the bootlicking lackeys of the financial establishment) have been warning for at least a year now about a dramatic slowdown in global trade. Well, it looks like the mainstream economists and their mouthpiece media are finally having to admit this harsh reality, too.
[..] The WSJ along with Reuters, the New York Times, and the other propaganda fronts for the deep state are now all jumping on board with the “dramatically reduced global trade outlook” after the WTO cut its 2016 global trade growth forecast to 1.7%, down from a predicted 2.8% just a few months ago. This would officially mean that global trade would be at its lowest point since the global financial crisis of 2008.
Again, none of this is surprising, but it certainly is alarming. Given that the anemic global growth we’ve seen since the global financial crisis has been fueled by precisely two things (central bank funny money and cheap Chinese trinkets), losing the second (admittedly much shorter) leg of this already precarious two-legged stool can only mean more pain and hardship for people around the world who are continuing to see their share of the overall economic pie reduced…and as the looming threat of automation threatens to make entire sectors of the labor force redundant.
But here’s the interesting (if no more surprising) part of the WTO’s announcement. It comes from WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo: