IS the US in Recession and whos fault is that?

So whats ur guess,....

1. Yes, the US is in recession. The National Bureau of Economic Research judges recessions on a case by case basis. In economic circles, the "2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth" is a crude and not generally accepted norm for measuring recessions.

2. It is not anyone's fault. Recessions are normal, even desireable. The fault lies not in having a recession, but in delaying it until the country becomes so vulnerable that the inevitable recession finally becomes something far more dangerous.

IMHO yes.

As for the recession itself - it won't be anywhere near normal imho if what will cause it has been so artificially overblown that the tumble will be just as bad, if only as a "reversion to the mean" type of correction.

People will feel this one when it starts to kick imho.

the word recession is "lagging" for errr...2 years?

YES, and we very well might be at the tip of very negitive things to come. In fact I believe the USD will be replaced with sumfin like the Amero (Mexico,Canada, U.S.). Just another step closer to a new world order!!

Oh I should mention if you don't own physical gold as a hedge you should consider it... Dow/Gold ratio says gold is still cheap.

It is now possible to have a gold IRA...

My Bull list:

OIL
GOLD/SLV
Agriculture
EUR
GBp

Owe forgot who is at fault...Every President in the last 30+ years, the fed since it's existence, Greenspan for printing so much cash and creating the housing bubble, and now Bernanke who will out print Greenspan as he attempts to stop the unstoppable.

American Corporations for having such a closed vision and only looking out 1QTR instead of long term. Then GETTING HYPER GREEDY WITH BONUSES This has not helped the Big corp's...

Here a pretty good read
http://www.europac.net/externalframe...=home&id=12003

Prostitutes cost $5500 an hour these days. We are not in recession.

PPI - prostitute price inflation

At these prices, the GDP could get back to green sooner.
Try and se if it is exportable !!

By the way my ECN's platform don't have this pair.

Well that shows all other countries is always lagging behind th US.

Hmm... you can vote for 2 choices. I chose yes, subprime and no, but it's getting there. There is no definitive line for a recession, but we are certainly close if not over it.

The disgusting thing is everyone trying to bail out these banks for making high risk loans. Maybe I don't understand something here but let me get this straight. You get to make more high risk loans. You get to charge HUGE interest rates for those loans, because they are high risk. You get to force the borrower to buy insurance for that loan, so you have nothing to lose but still get to make more on principle. When you screw that up, you get bailed out. Huh? Higher Risk = Higher Return. Hasn't that been the rule across most financial vehicles? How can you still get the higher return, but get bailed out when the risk bites you?

i thought that was the standard definition

who doesn "accept" it? what do they accept??

btw...pretty much everyone is talking about the US reccession now. but do you remember who brought it up first?? thats right, it was greenspan, the guy who got us on our way LOL.

amen! but as unfair as it is, i think its neccesary and in americas best interest. just one of those things

since majority choose the first option,...here is a nice link, marking it to read later... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprim...nancial_crisis

i wish that europe would suffer similar crisis and i could buy a house for cheap, and on a cheap credit,..like its possible now in usa,..., but on the other you cant have both, a strong euro, low interest rates, and cheap houses,......

On topic:

CFOs: already in recession

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/commen...recession.html

It's really hard to say what's best overall. The Darwinian in me says that institutions that manage money improperly SHOULD go under. This has been happening with hedge funds lately what with margin calls etc. The way I see it, banks are essentially trading on margin as well - their customers' funds. The Great Depression was essentially one big customer-driven margin call, with depositors withdrawing their funds (the banks' margin), thus forcing the banks to liquidate their investments, thus depressing market prices, etc. Let those who have bad risk-management go under, and the economy should be better off in the future. Surely I'm no Economic Ph.D., but that's just how it seems to me.

On the other hand, extinction and depression are common in natural population cycles. In some of my engineering courses, we used differential equations to simulate these predictable cycles. These systems can have different degrees of what engineers call damping - the reduction of natural fluctuations. Essentially, the purpose of the Fed is to apply damping to our economic system in order to decrease fluctuations. We are thus relying on the Fed to apply this power appropriately. Hopefully they got As in their diffeq classes... otherwise, America might be steaming full-on into stagflation.

That's what I thought until recently when I heard Harvard University economics Professor and member of the National Bureau of Economic Research Jeffrey Frankel say that they judge each case of a possible recession on a case by case basis (of course he failed to elaborate further on the actual criteria used ).

The NBER's word is considered to be the official and final word on recessions.

I guess the "2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth" is a fine definition for us mere mortals... but for the great guiding spirits at the NBER and Harvard University, it's not nearly abstract enough.

The plot thickens - more on "we're in a recession"

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/commen...mists-say.html

Please take note that according to that guy, the real world thinks that housing is FAR from over, unlike the super-credible, proper ratings everywhere giving, objective authority that is S&P.

SL, unfortunately many officials have to seem more optimistic than they really are... This is an excerpt from Alan Greenspan's Book "The Age of Turbulence", in the context of post 9/11 America:

Quote

Disliked

In fact, I was putting a better face on the situation than I feared might be the case... on the record I took a less pessimistic stance because if I had fully expressed what I thought the probabilities were, I'd have scared the markets half to death.

So sugar-coating is standard procedure for Fed chairmen and many others involved in making critical policy decisions.