[hillsidedigger]

Temporary Recession or the End of Growth?

No, the beginning of terminal decline.

[deMolay]

Bill Bonner is right on here I think. http://www.321gold.com/editorials/bonne ... 12709.html

[leaflight]

200k+ laid of in Oct and then Again in Nov in USA, also on avg 135,000 foreclosures and bankruptcies every month 40/60.

Intresting times

[Homesteader]

snip from the article:

"Alas, it's the work of a DEPRESSION - de-leveraging, busting up, working out loans, defaulting on debt...going chapters 11 and 7.

Yes, dear reader, the recession is over. Welcome back to the Depression. The number crunchers reported a positive GDP growth figure for the last quarter of 3.5%. Everyone cheered. Now, the crunchers admit that they were a little too optimistic. The real number is only 2.8%. But it's still positive. So the recovery is still on...

Sort of. If you deconstruct the numbers, and pull out all the feds' hot money effects, you'll probably find that the economy is not growing at all. How could it be? It's a consumer economy. Consumers aren't consuming...

The Wall Street Journal reports that "One in four borrowers underwater."

Mortgage delinquencies at a record high, adds The New York Times.

Real joblessness is at 17.5%, reports CNBC.

Insiders are selling 17 of their own shares for every one that they buy.

"Consumers lose appetite for dining out," says The Los Angeles Times.

The National Retail Federation thinks holiday sales will be 1% lower than last year. And last year they were depressed.

But The New York Times is worried about us over here in England. "Lost decade feared for British economy," says a headline.

As we pointed out yesterday, the US economy has already suffered a lost decade. No employment growth in the last ten years. No gains in the stock market. No household income growth. As near as we can tell, the whole nation is just another decade older and deeper in debt."

[mcgowanjm]

And that's 255,000 jobs lost in Nov.-TrimTab IRS survey

[rangerone314]

And when the S&P has been stagnant for over a decade (0% growth) that represents a zero-sum game.

For every $1 a smart investor with some advantage made (like Goldman Sachs), some other investor (with less connections, accurate & truthful information or lacking ultra-high-speed trading) lost a $1.

With the advent of peak oil, massive government debts & obligations (social security, medicaire), and inflation looming in the future, what makes ANYONE think we are destined for anything BETTER than ANOTHER lost decade from 2010-2020?

[Dreamtwister]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rangerone314', 'F')or every $1 a smart investor with some advantage made (like Goldman Sachs), some other investor (with less connections, accurate & truthful information or lacking ultra-high-speed trading) lost a $1.

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dreamtwister', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rangerone314', 'F')or every $1 a smart investor with some advantage made (like Goldman Sachs), some other investor (with less connections, accurate & truthful information or lacking ultra-high-speed trading) lost a $1.

[Ache]

It Wasn't a Mortgage Recession After All: So Why Don't We Feel Better?

[Tyler_JC]

The bank panic was caused by the subprime mortgages going bust and taking the credit default swaps with them.

That's like saying he didn't die because of the gunshot, he died because of severe internal bleeding. You might be technically correct but you have missed the entire point.

(Nothing personal)

[mcgowanjm]

I Wallerstein:
[url]
http://www.iwallerstein.com/greek-mess- ... orld-mess/[/url]

This is because governments wish to survive. To do this, they need to spend enough money to prevent a “maelstrom” and civil uprising. And if they don’t take in enough taxes to do this (both because they don’t want to raise taxes further and because a weaker economy means less overall tax income), they must “massage” their accounts by borrowing. And covert borrowing (from banks, for example) is better than overt borrowing, since it enables governments to avoid criticism, until the day when the secret gets revealed, and there’s a “run on the bank.”

Greece’s problems are indeed Germany’s problems. Germany’s problems are indeed the United States’ problems. And the United States’ problems are indeed the world’s problems. Analyzing who did what in the last ten years is far less useful than discussing what, if anything, can be done in the next ten years. What is going on is a world-wide game of chicken. Everyone seems to be waiting for who will flinch first. Someone is going to make a mistake. And then we’ll have what Barry Eichengreen has called “the mother of all financial crises.” Even China will be affected by that one.

Bold Prediction: Summer 2010

[Revi]

Great... We are all Greece in a way. I went there about 5 years ago, and they didn't seem to be living beyond their means. They did host the Olympics, but that was when the financial picture seemed rosier.

Most Greeks live in modern three and four story buildings and don't drive much.

They have a great train system and lots of boats to get you places, but not too many cars.

Why are they in such trouble?

[truecougarblue]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', '
')Why are they in such trouble?

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('truecougarblue', 't')ourism isn't exactly the best basis for an economy in a time of ungrowth.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', '
')
Why are they in such trouble?

[sameu]

Greece has been for too long, too strong socialistic. For example, retirement age in Europe is give or take 65 years, with a lot of countries now augmenting that age with 1 or 2 years.
Official retirement age in Greece: 61, plans for increasing that to 63 and you've got riots in the street.
Also now the unions are completely shutting down the country.
The babay doesn't want his medicine I guess

[Buggy]

Yes,

I confess that I have prayed to God for this house of cards to come crashing down and for the evil men who run this country to be brought to justice, but that will have to wait for another day, another month, another year. For this year, this month, this day has revealed the hand being played. This month, September of 2010 has become the only month counting two years back and two years forward that matters. At the end of this month Americans will not care, nor will they likely remember what happened the two years prior. Come October, what happened in the last month of the third quarter will be all they will recall going into the voting box in the opening stretch of November. Thus, what happens in September will determine what happens in Washington for the two years following. The hand has been played, the game is rigged, and September of 2010 will go down in history as the month the Great Recession was officially laid to rest. Look for unemployment to drop to 9% or below, for the DOW to break 11,500, for the housing market to rebound, for lending to expand, the GDP to grow at 5.8% and for pigs to fly. Yessir, it’s gonna be a grand ol’ time.

[Plantagenet]

The recession was over a year ago.

The problem is the recovery we've been in for the last year is unusually weak and not creating enough jobs even to keep up with population growth and what little GDP growth we had is shrinking quarter by quarter, suggesting we might enter a second recession.

[Colorado-Valley]

What about the Inflationary Depression?

When does that happen?