Some of my economic predictions for 2012 at the start of the year were: "Some European nations barely burped when the Great Recession hit and the U.S. went into housing anaphylaxis. In all cases their acceleration of housing markets has hugely outpaced wages. Clearly that is not sustainable. Most of these nations intentionally fueled this rise with the lowest interest rates in history, learning absolutely nothing from the U.S. debacle. Europe thought it would power right through the Great Recession. If last year proved this to be unlikely when housing prices in some areas began to recede, 2012 with its pan-European recession will be Europe’s 2008…. if you think European banks have trouble now because of U.S. investments and because of Greece, Portugal and Ireland, how much more so when European housing bubbles all begin to pop now that unemployment is rapidly rising…? The heat of summer will look like the heat of hell for Europe. Money will flee Europe over the course of this year, including European money…. Spain will consume the last of Europe’s ability to save the euro…. Spain will land hard, and the euro zone will reach the end of its euro-rope …2012 has the markings of an economic apocalypse that will create a new world for us to live in by 2013. With so many massive cracks in the landscape, my last prediction in this post is a little shy of an economic apocalypse in 2012: Some combination of the above predictions will give way in a landslide by year end to make the beginning of 2013 look a lot worse than the beginning of 2012…. This is the year when all hope for reviving the old economy begins to crack and fall away. The next president of the United States, be he the same one we already have or another, walks onto a stage much different than we’ve seen in a very long time." ( http://thegreatrecession.info/blog/2012-economic-predictions-my-mid-year-audit/ ) --David Haggith