HUH?
US Recession by Falling Oil

Well, it's not allll that simple, and James Hamilton over at Econobrowser posits that falling oil prices alone may only be culpable in triggering regional recessions (think oil production heavy economies, like Texas, or North Dakota).

Prof. Hamilton starts out by quoting < Donald Luskin's Jan 7th article in the ( Read more... )

Recession 2012 Call in Doubt
ECRI Doubles Down on 2012 Recession Call
Forecasts of recession 2012 are seriously in doubt, as very little has definitively pointed to the onset of a new recession this year. Despite this, ECRI, which back in September of last year called for imminent recession, perhaps the first true gun-jumping in the entire 16 year ( Read more... )

Global Recession 2012
Global Double Dip Recession of 2012
In what can only be described as a sordid continuation of the Global Financial Trainwreck that started way back in 2007, the world this Monday morning is staring squarely down the barrel of a severe double dip recession.

With so many problems left over from 2007-09 that were merely swept under ( Read more... )

ECRI Recession Call
ECRI Stands Firm: Certain Of US Recession 2012
The Economic Cycle Research Institute, ECRI as it is more often referred to, has double downed on their recession call made last fall, and contrary to popular opinion, they now actually have more data to back it up.

ECRI's Lakshman Achuthan made the show circuit this past week ( Read more... )

By Charlie Stross ( Read more... )

CNBC
'Depression' Makes Return to Mainstream Lexicon

You know it's grim when the prevailing debate among economists and historians is whether the world economy faces the "Great" depression of the 1930s or the "Long" depression of the 1870s.

Listening to commentary surrounding the seemingly intractable sovereign debt and banking crisis in Europe, the ( Read more... )

I have chosen to embed this chart of estimated monthly US GDP in reference to the last post, in which I ask in a poll: "Most recession indicators have yet to return to their pre-2008 "peaks." If a new recession starts now, what is this 2007- TBD funk?".

What I meant by that question is simply most of the key economic indicators of expansion/ ( Read more... )

Publicly admitting what most honest economists have been saying for a while now. I guess there's still something to be said for better late instead of never...
New York Times
White House Expects Persistently High Unemployment...The unemployment outlook for the next 16 months reflects a 9.1 percent rate this year, down slightly from the 9.3 percent ( Read more... )

"Great Recession" has really stuck as the name given to the downturn that officially began in late 2007 and officially ended in mid-2009... and unofficially started back in 2006 and unofficially continues in many ways to this day.

The downturn certainly has felt greatly awful, but how does it measure up against other recessions? Was it really and ( Read more... )

Many have often referred to the period of economic malaise that began around 2000 with the bursting of the stock/tech bubbles and subsequent implementation of Bushnomics as a sort of modern day take on the 1920s all over again (a nasty recession early, followed by unchecked credit expansions and rampant speculation creating false wealth through the ( Read more... )