Is this the week the world economy bites it?

Ok, I know.. I haven’t written an honest-to-goodness analysis piece in awhile – but now.. the world is ending and I’ve noticed that no one else was writing about it.. well not just this moment ..

We’ve been hearing that EU is going to crash any day now, that Americans are over-leveraged and as Conservatives we know all about the looming debt crisis.

Today, Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos will be asking for new legislation that would impose losses on anyone who had been foolish enough to invest in the country. This provision would be triggered if no agreement could be reached in debt negotiations that will start on Wednesday. Papademos said, “The talks are not straightforward, because they aim at a voluntary restructuring of public debt, and to achieve a number of objectives simultaneously, objectives that involve trade-offs”

Of course that doesn’t mean the collapse of the Greek banking system (yet) which would lead to the fall of the EU (but not now) and then an eventual collapse of the global economy and life as we know it (if it were really happening). Nope, not that – not just this minute.

What about that middle east and Asia thing? @Zerohedge announced that the Oil Minister of India (one of the hottest new economies in the world) is now preparing for “all eventualities over Iran oil supplies”. And now, somehow, a middle-eastern country is about to run out of .. petroleum products. Nothing to see here, please move along.

The international community has its issues and apparently the United States is also on the precipice of catastrophe. The New York Times reminds us that “Few Cities Have regained Lost Jobs“, Reddit is going on strike, Palin would vote for Gingrich (in South Carolina), the unemployment rate is only getting better because more people have decided to quit looking for work and Colbert is being taken seriously by a major news outlet – you get the point.

So the world sucks, it’s 2012 so the whole Mayan calendar thing is coming, and we’re faced with the prospect of another 4 years of Barack Obama – who wouldn’t build a bunker, trim the hedges to create clear lines of fire and stock up a 50 year supply of that crappy astronaut ice cream  to weather the storm? Who?!

There is an economic storm brewing. The mainstream media needs you to keep trucking along so they can keep a steady stream of viable sponsors paying their bills. The politicians in power need you to believe things are stable so you’ll re-elect them and banks need you to think that it’s just fine to keep borrowing and spending your way to happiness. So don’t worry, be happy.

So who do you believe? Is Greece finally on the edge, will Iran prove a tipping point for Asian and European markets, will America’s debt-to-GDP ratio finally render the world’s largest economy defunct – or as Obama has told us, are things improving? Perhaps you should make sure your food store is stocked, you have cash, gold, chickens or whatever because after all, Rocks from Mars are Falling on Morocco – and if that’s not a indicator of the apocalypse.. what is?