Despite bold pledges to end Austerity by the Syriza party of Greece, rumors of witholding

debt payment ended when 460 million Euros went to the IMF Thursday April 9th.

In total Greece has 16 billion Euros due this year to creditors; that's 8% of their GDP.

An equivalent amount would be if the US had to pay $1.3 trillion this year;

literally impossible without just printing new money, something Greece cannot do while

it's part of the Eurozone. More than $6 billion is due to the European Central Bank (ECB)

from June to August. Greece's economy is still facing greater than 25% unemployment with

little signs of recovery.

On the war front a preliminary deal with Iran on their nuclear program has been reached

that would see Iran making drastic cuts to its program in return for economic sanctions

being lifted. We will see if this plays out; of course Israel is not the happiest. Speaking

of, both Israel & Iran are set to join China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

In End of the Petrodollar news, China is closer to joining the major league of reserve currencies

with a deal possible later this year to include the yuan in the International Monetary Fund's

SDR global currency. Germany supports the addition; we will give more details later

this year as the plans unfold.

China has it's own potential problems though; the Shanghai Composite has doubled in one

year giving hints of a bubble. The Hong Kong Hang Seng market rose 10% in just two days.

In U.S. focused news, the Atlanta Fed reports GDP growth revised to 0% for the first quarter

of 2015, down from a 2.3% estimate given february 13th.

The US Dollar index has already recovered back to 1% down from the recent high.

For the stock market, the S&P 500 is roughly flat in 2015 remaining at 2,090 points where

it ended last December. In contrast, gold and silver are showing a slight turnaround

as well as the oil price; our estimates say oil will not have any massives moves this

year however; absent any OPEC major cut which is not likely.

In the last year the US Bureau of Labor Statistics has added 2.1 million Americans to the �not

in the labor force� category. The total is now 93.2 million Americans. At a 320 million

person population, this would put a straightforward unemployment number well above 30%. There

are 24 million more Americans not in the labor force compared to just 15 years ago.

To our North, Canada is expected to pass a balanced budget law to return to fiscal restraint

they saw before the 2008 crisis.

Tune in next week for your next summary of economic crisis news.