the neo con morons and the rest of american mouth breathers are finding out the hard way when you base an economy on rampent consumerism, pumped up by a military industrial complex as your only source of real income.

The purpetual war is what they were hoping for to keep the economy going, but when you are spending out 12 billion a month and not getting any return, you have a shitty economy.

couple that with over inflated housing prices, impossible to meet mortgage interest rates, a failing dollar, lack of liquidity in the banking sector and imaginary hedge funds and what you get is the perfect recipe for a colossal recession/depression.

ready for 10 buck a loaf bread? it's coming. wheat is at an all time high, inflation is sky rocketing because bend over bernacke keeps cutting interest rates giving the rich yet another break while the rest of us drown in this bullshit economy.

63K loss of jobs and negative growth.

we are soooo screwed.

There is absolutely NO reason why this country, of all countries, has to be in a recession. If you want to understand how and why we find ourselves in this fix, read the quotes made by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He's the General of the Army (five(!) stars) who clearly understood and wrote-about the danger of a "military-industrial complex" (his term...) that would become ravenously malignant.

(1) This government "borrows from itself" more than $1 million a MINUTE, all day and all night of every day of every week of every month of every year, to fuel this insane appetite. Domestic programs, domestic cities, airplane inspection, food safety, you name it ... NOTHING ELSE MATTERS, because "there's just so damn much money to be made," or so it seems. The greatest robber-barons of the 19th century, all of them combined and multiplied many times, could not hold a candle to this.

(2) The greatest producer-nation on this planet is now being relentlessly told that it is weak, that it is powerless, that it is being pushed to-and-fro by other nations ... unless, of course, it spends still more money on "defense."

(3) Meanwhile, said nation is being told that it must be a "consumer nation," this being a multi-bit metaphor for "leech." We've got all these factories throughout the country sitting idle, but "of course" they can't possibly do what they did in the early 20th century (like, "win World War II"). Oh no, Rosie the Riveter might break her nails. No no, we're told, we MUST ship our goods 10,000 miles from sweatshop to Neiman Marcus, where we must all pay for it with our credit-cards using the pittance of money that Uncle Sam deigned to give us.

I got a better idea: toss every one of these geriatric non-soldiers out of the Congress in their wheelchairs, and bring back Rosie. Bring back Uncle Sam. Find me the guy in that poster, strapping with muscles and rolling up his sleeves. "I can build that." "If you don't know how, I'll teach you in school." "And you'll DAMN WELL LEARN in school, just like I did, because if you don't PASS fifth grade you get to REPEAT fifth grade, just like I did and now LOOK at the graduate degree on that wall over there."

It will work, ladies and gentlemen. Just as soon as we're ready to stop taking their geriatric millionaire's schit. Shall we proceed?

"We typically don't know we are in a recession until it's over..."

That's like saying you don't know that your house is on fire until they are pulling your smoking body from the ashes!

Sign #1: Every news outlet has a daily headline asking, "Are We In A Recession?"

The good news is that we shouldn't expect a 'run on banks', as occurred in 1929, for the simple reason that Americans, in general, (not including myself) are deeply in credit card debt, and therefore don't have any money in savings.

The poor and working class have been in a recession since 2001. The middle class has been in a recession since 2005. It is just now that Wall Street is going into recession.

GDP has all been tilted toward the haves and the have mores so that even while th economy was expanding everybody else was getting less.

A sure sign of an impending recession is when a moron embeds himself in the white house.This was inevitable given the "leadership".

The U.S. has been in recession almost a year.

Hyper-manipulated employment numbers can't hide the fact, any more.

People are losing their homes. There's a clue.

It doesn't matter what you call it. North American tax payers should back off "spending" and move to saving their dollars, one at a time. That will automatically impact the amount of cash going into foreign treasuries.

http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/02/rebounding-us-economy.html

... and all levels of government should follow that lead.

Listen to the shills at your own peril. Your wallet tells you in no uncertain terms when we are in a recession.