While Gerorge Soros and Jim Rodgers predict one of the worst recessions for the US, Americans seem to look for exit options in form of a second citizenship.
posted on Jun 10, 2008 - View this thread

"Hard Numbers: The Economy is Worse than You Know" [full article for Harper's subscribers, a different abridged version] discusses how the Consumer Price Index and other US economic statistics have been manipulated over time. Among other things, the article claims, these changes make Social Security checks 70% lower than they would otherwise be.
posted on May 5, 2008 - View this thread

The Financial Crisis: An Interview with George Soros. "We are in the midst of a financial crisis the likes of which we haven't seen since the Great Depression." (video, April 4)
posted on Apr 28, 2008 - View this thread

Tent cities spring up in L.A. With foreclosures rates still rising, shantytowns have started springing up in Los Angeles.
posted on Mar 18, 2008 - View this thread

Carmen Reinhart of the University of Maryland and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University have compared the recent US subprime mortgage crisis with five downturns in industrialized economies in the past 30 years in their brief paper, Is the 2007 U.S. Sub-Prime Financial Crisis So Different? (pdf). Their conclusion: “given the severity of most crisis indicators in the run-up to its 2007 financial crisis, the United States should consider itself quite fortunate if its downturn ends up being a relatively short and mild one.” Summarized, with some data and charts, here. Via.
posted on Feb 9, 2008 - View this thread

You Can Almost Hear It Pop, by Stephen S. Roach
The Facts Say No, by Marcelle Chauvet and Kevin Hassett
Bet the House on It, by Laura Tyson
Not if Exports Save Us, by Jason Furman
Nobody Knows, by James Grant
Wait Till Next Year, by Martin Feldstein

Stolen, HTML and all, from Calculated Risk.
posted on Dec 16, 2007 - View this thread

Is Jay-Z signaling a recession? There is something quite alarming on the recently released “Blue Magic” music video ... it wasn’t sex, drugs, violence or explicit language that shocked my conscience. It was the Euros. The Jay-Z video flashed large stacks of $500 Euros. When I start seeing rap stars flashing euros instead of U.S. dollars, I know our economy is in trouble.
posted on Nov 5, 2007 - View this thread

On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 0.5%. Wall Street aggressively demanded the cut to stop the sub-prime mortgage contagion from triggering a credit crisis among large US and foreign investment banks and the collapse of their over-leveraged hedge funds, which ultimately threatened to drag the US economy into recession. The market rallied this week in response to the Fed's move. But there is no free lunch.
posted on Sep 20, 2007 - View this thread

Teenage Hoboes in the Great Depression. During the Great Depression over 250,000 young people left home and began riding freight trains or hitchhiking across America. Most of them were between 16 and 25 years of age. Many finally found work and shelter through the Civilian Conservation Corps, a government relief project that Franklin D. Roosevelt established in 1933 as part of the New Deal. From 1933 to 1942, CCC enrollees built new roads, strung telephone wires, erected fire towers, and planted approximately 3 billion trees. By 1935, the program was providing employment for more than 500,000 young men.
posted on Jul 7, 2006 - View this thread

Interesting article on the Japanese "social recession" (from the back pages of USA Today) "To an astonishing degree, the sexes are going their opposite ways in Japan. Young women are revolting against the traditional role of obedient housewife, opting instead to live at home and shop and socialize with girlfriends. Startled men are retreating into solitary ways. Check-ins at the country's famed 'love hotels' are even falling. As birthrates slip, a social crisis looms."
posted on Jun 3, 2004 - View this thread

The change in private employment, two years after recession began, for 1953 to Present.
Details: The jobless recovery continued in March 2003 as the nation's payrolls contracted by 108,000, according to report released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). These losses are in addition to last month's payroll declines, which also were revised up to 357,000. Taken together, the economy has lost 465,000 jobs in the past two months. In the two years since the recession began in March 2001, total payrolls have fallen by 2.1 million and private sector payrolls are down by 2.6 million.
The Jobless Recovery.
Low growth accompanies record trade deficit:
Last month in Beijing, Robert Zoellick, President George W. Bush's international trade ambassador, had nothing but praise for China's growing trade surplus. Meanwhile in St. Louis in January, the president stumped for more tax cuts, standing before a facade of boxes with the words "Made in China" covered over in tape.
2001 Tax Cuts and the Proposed 2003 Cuts
Details: Discarding pretense of tax cut equity
Also: Economists Voice Opposition to Bush Tax Cuts
posted on Apr 16, 2003 - View this thread

But it was broken when I got here! New numbers indicate that the recession started before Bush came to office. Do Bush's statements succeed in making him less responsible for the recession in the eyes of the public? Do these kinds of statements restore people's faith in the economy?
posted on Aug 7, 2002 - View this thread

The WSJ's 6 clues that the recession is lessening.
Number 6: Gary Condit is back in the news. (MSNBC link)
posted on Jan 4, 2002 - View this thread

THE DISAPPEARING RICH PEOPLE: A Seattle writer explores the deserted confines of "Seattle's newest four star hotel". Empty and sad, even though it is just the rich people's stuff.
posted on Dec 14, 2001 - View this thread

Recession? What recession? "An economic research group declared Monday that the United States has been in a recession since March of this year." It's official.
posted on Nov 26, 2001 - View this thread

What ever happened to ultraprosperity? This 1999 article written on the middle of dotcom stocktopia may make you laugh, cry or keep scratching your head, at least. Now, where's the "ultraprosperity" we were promised when we need it the most - right now- us balancing in the verge of recession, burst bubbles and nonstop layoffs?
posted on Aug 4, 2001 - View this thread

F*ckedEconomy? Cuts in interest rates don't seem to be helping. Layoffs persist (and not just tech/dotcoms). The market bounces, but can it sustain itself? Some say the market will rebound in the 2nd quarter of next year, but these are the same people who saw an uptick coming this fall. Are we headed towards a recession, again? Lucent even had to sell their golf course.
posted on Jul 31, 2001 - View this thread

When you line up all the layoffs, it actually looks pretty bad. I suspect the news industry knows recession = increased news consumption & ad sales and are going for it, regardless of how "bad" our current economic climate may be. Will the dot com downturn lead to losses everywhere or will it be concentrated solely in the tech sector?
posted on Apr 16, 2001 - View this thread

Is the US really entering a recession? Even with recent layoffs, the last time unemployement was this low before 1999 was 1970. And maybe a recession is not such a bad idea, what with spending outmaching saving in recent years. [more inside]
posted on Feb 3, 2001 - View this thread

Americans believe in a recession within the next four years.
    But of course. It's only natural after the most prolonged economic expansion in history. So don't go blaming the next administration when it finally happens.
    If Gore is president, then people will say: "12 years of democrats is enough!", but if Bush is in charge, then the complain will go "You see? republicans don't have a clue".
posted on Jun 3, 2000 - View this thread