Thinking Thursday- CNN Poll Shows 48% of Americans Believe Great Depression Is Coming Soon; Wealthy, Get Wealthier; 200,000 Citi Bank Accounts Get Hacked, Citi Admits 1 Month Later; Max Keiser Bank Updates, Show French Bank Cuts ATM Access; Gold Never Gets Old; Nokia Is Crumbling; Japanese Economy In Meltdown; Thousands Flee High Radiation; TEPCO Shares Plummet Another 20%, Worth Toilet Paper; Japan Faces Nuclear Power Shortages as Only 17 of 54 Reactors Operational; IMF Urges Japan To Triple Tax; Much More

Updates
Update 1: Corn is getting popped on the CBOT. Fresh high not seen since 2008. And you thought the food riots in 2008 were bad? 

Main Article
Let's be blunt: all things being constant, the world is descending into chaos. Besides the degenerating and continually expanding threats from Fukushima spewing radioactive particles into the environment (more on that later), the world has been on the financial brink since 2008 and nearly three years later, it's coming unglued. As a recent CNN poll shows, 48% of Americans believe a Great Depression is coming within a year. We're not sure who constitute the other 52%, but the top 5% of the population in terms of wealth, have never been happier. The world's Billionaires list not only increased by an incredible 20%, but those in the Billionaire ranks saw their net worth increase by an astounding $1 Trillion - not to mention, the tens of thousands of banksters who received record bonuses last year and are on track for another booty. From my personal observations, I have never in my life seen more banks than at any other time; Starbucks ain't got nuthin' on banks. 

Max Keiser ran an excellent story two days ago about France's biggest bank cutting ATM card cash access in half (American banks already did this way back in early March) for the week and people are flipping out. Which raises yet another question concerning the necessity of banks: what is the purpose of having money in your bank account if you can't access any amount that you need? Worse still, that money may not be as safe as you think. Citibank (a Too Big To Fail, Too Big To Save tax payer funded bank) is admitting to a serious hacking of 200,000 accounts. Here's the clincher - that incident occurred one month ago, yet they are just  admitting it now. Time for another "personal observation," so follow this line of thought: 1) Many bank checking accounts are now costing you upwards of $20 per month to keep your money stashed in an account 2) that you may or may not have full access to. 3) Typical checking accounts pay 0.00114% interest, which is not even enough to cover the cost of inflation for a single hour, given a very conservative MIT Billion Price Project estimated 10% annual inflation rate. With some savvy mathematicians placing the real inflation rate at 17%+, you can see how keeping money in the bank is a losing proposition. Remember, gold never gets old.

Speaking of old, Nokia is going out of business is looking like Greece's economy, as they reported crumbling sales to Texas Instruments, who in turn warned that next quarter will be a mess. Other than that, everything is radioactive rosy.

Speaking of radioactive rosy, Japan's economy is in a meltdown of nuclear proportions. Of course, readers of this blog knew by March 11th that Japan's economy would go into cold shutdown and that supply chain disruptions were not going to be bullish for anyone. It remains mind boggling that to this day, we haven't seen Mr. Buffet retract any of his bull... bullish statements about Japan's catastrophes being bullish for the global economy, just like we wonder when Ms. Coulter will retract her statements that radiation is healthy. We won't hold our breath like everyone on the West Coast of the U.S. should do to avoid breathing in radioactive particles from Fukushima. By the looks of things, as we predicted, this situation is about to really go full retard. First, we get word that thousands of people are trying to flee the areas in Japan that were declared "safe" by officials but are now detecting high levels of radiation. Then we learn that an incinerator has been spewing radioactive sludge for weeks and that 230,000 becquerels per square meter of radioactive cesium have been detected in school fields(!) All of this explains why TEPCO shares have dropped another 20% from the previous low the day before, to a lower low of $1.85. On Monday we said after TEPCO shares made a new low, that they have at least another 100% to go and after today's drop, they still have another 100% to drop. This is basic math folks. [insert smiley face]

We're sure that some overpaid talking head on CNBS will come out to spin that Japan's nuclear power shortages, which are spreading, are bullish for the economy. An interesting noteworthy comment from this article: "only 17 of Japan's 54 reactors now are operating—merely a third of the country's total nuclear-generating capacity." And Toyota/Honda/Nissan/Sony/Hitachi et al are supposed to operate their factories on what? At the same time, the IMF is urging Japan to raise its sales tax from 5% to 15% in order to pay for this disaster. Uh, what? As we posted back in early March about Greece's financial death spiral, there's no better way to stimulate your economy than taxing the hell out of your people while implementing austerity measures during the worst global financial crisis the world has even seen. And be sure to include skyrocketing energy prices for good measure. That works well.