gold, page-57233

Grave fears about the consequences of the next recession, alarm over mounting corporate debt levels, questions over the side-effects of central bank policies....

.......is it all ‘goldbug’ nonsense, the witterings of people who don’t understand debt because debt is ‘just entries on a ledger’, laughable ‘conspiracy theories’?

No - in this instance it’s the IMF.

It’s the IMF stating that if the next downturn is half as bad as the last one, 40% of corporate debt in advanced countries is unserviceable.

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...-faces-19tn-corporate-debt-timebomb-warns-imf

Global economy faces $19tn corporate debt timebomb, warns IMF

Update on markets lists eight leading countries, including US, China and UK, as vulnerable

Larry Elliott in Washington

Wed 16 Oct 2019 13.30 BSTLast modified on Wed 16 Oct 2019 16.45

Low interest rates are encouraging companies to take on a level of debt that risks becoming a $19tn (£15tn) timebomb in the event of another global recession, the International Monetary Fund has said.

In its half-yearly update on the state of the world’s financial markets, the IMF said that almost 40% of the corporate debt in eight leading countries – the US, China, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Spain – would be impossible to service if there was a downturn half as serious as that of a decade ago.

The IMF noted that the stimulus provided by central banks in both developed and developing countries had the side-effect of encouraging firms to borrow more, even though many would have trouble paying it back.