off the cycle

OMG!!! Alert

2011-03-16T10:15:00.001-07:00

The teevee is telling me all about taking iodine pills to prevent radiation sickness.

Me Too

2010-12-26T14:21:00.000-08:00

Atrios is right. It's time.

Tell of the Day

2010-07-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

Jim Cramer's mouth rushes ahead of his brain:
Cramer admitted there are still lots of problems here in America, and the government's anti-business stance in favor of the little guy isn't helping the economy at large.
That's right. The last thing government should be doing is helping the little guy.

More Than Ever

2010-07-25T12:18:00.001-07:00

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son ?
And where have you been my darling young one ?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

A Look into the Future

2010-06-12T10:32:00.000-07:00

Peter Cohan on recent economic developments:
China is overtaking the U.S. because of China's superior application of capital. With Greece having taken a $140 billion bailout from Europe, China is viewing Greece's weakened condition as an opportunity to build a distribution network in Europe. So China is investing capital to extend its 10% economic growth based on building real businesses.
Why is China investing when the rest of the world sees Greece as an economic basket case? China wants to make it easier for the output of its factories to reach consumers across Europe and North Africa, according to the Post. Moreover, China's investment in Greece isn't a one-shot deal. It has also "plunked down billions from Angola to Peru" to help guarantee China's supply of raw materials and product distribution through "a network of roads, pipelines, railroads and port facilities --sort of a modern Silk Road -- to boost East-West trade," according to the Post.
By contrast, the U.S. financial markets are dominated by high-frequency traders who account for 70% of trading volume and exalt the use of technology to outsmart other traders -- rather than using it to create jobs by building businesses.
Read the whole thing.

So True

2010-05-31T06:40:00.001-07:00

From the great Jeff Miller:
"One of the worst features of CNBC is the penchant for taking a stupid question and posing it to people who could not possibly know the answer."

You Know What?

2010-03-06T08:04:00.000-08:00

They may be right.

From The People's Daily:

The quenching of the developed countries'growth by the bout of the Great Recession has driven more Western thinkers and political analysts to look eastwards at China. Some have coined the phrase "Beijing consensus" or "China model", and more are studying the phenomenon of the country's political skeleton versus its monumental rise.

The way the decision-makers in Beijing chewed the possibly decimating impact of the global financial crisis and swiftly meted out a massive stimulus plan in late 2008, raised the eyebrows of many. The funds were rushed to high-speed railways, inter-province expressways and tens of thousands of infrastructure projects right away, without hitting the walls of parliamentary obstruction.

It has worked out wonders: the country's economy expanded by 8.8 percent last year. It outgrew Germany as the top exporter and the United States as the largest auto consumer in 2009.And, even before some Western economic gurus warned it of bubbling asset prices, China's central bank had started to fine-tune it by twice raising the reserve requirement ratio of banks, aimed at reining in credit and preventing inflationary bubbles.

Are Chinese getting smarter these days? Not exactly! It has nurtured a system that is tested and proved to be fairly functioning and efficient. The result is not as rowdy and contesting -- even predatory -- as we have seen in some Western democracies. The way one political party tries to sit at the throat of another by obstructing and killing every legislative move proposed by the politicians in power regardless of its merits, is just outrageous, if not preposterous.

Take the United States for an instance. More than 16 months has passed since the eruption of the crisis, the country hasn't come out with a repair plan to fix the holes of its financial regulation, because legislative lines submitted by the Obama administration to scrutinize credit default swaps and other dubious financial instruments, and protect individual consumers, are being held back by partisan lawmakers and bank lobbyists.

http://english.people.com.cn/90002/96743/6908714.html

Cats Rule!

2010-02-16T15:14:00.000-08:00

Good Stuff

2010-01-04T22:33:00.001-08:00

So True

2009-12-27T08:15:00.001-08:00

Yep

2009-12-12T05:41:00.001-08:00

(Thanks John Danziger)

This Is Cool

2009-12-12T05:11:00.000-08:00

Tick Tock

2009-09-29T06:11:00.000-07:00

(thanks to Tony Auth)

Slacker Friday

2009-09-25T15:57:00.000-07:00

The one, the only, Charlie Pierce.

What's Really Important

2009-08-29T05:46:00.000-07:00

(Thanks to Brian Bassett)

Greatness

2009-08-16T17:58:00.000-07:00

Les Paul, R.I.P.

Thanks for Clearing That Up

2009-08-15T05:28:00.000-07:00

(Thanks Nick Anderson)

Read This

2009-08-11T07:57:00.000-07:00

Paul Waldman is good in The American Prospect today.

Your Modern GOP

2009-08-04T06:40:00.000-07:00

Lloyd Doggett's meeting on Obamacare in south Austin, TX, 1 Aug 2009

Rock and Roll Will Never Die

2009-08-04T06:04:00.000-07:00

Village People Populism

2009-08-02T07:37:00.000-07:00

Frank Rich is good today.

"What provokes their angry and nonsensical cries of racism is sheer desperation: an entire country is changing faster than these white guys bargained for. We’ve been reminded repeatedly during Gatesgate that Cambridge’s mayor is a black lesbian. But a more representative window into the country’s transition might be that Dallas County, Tex., elected a Latina lesbian sheriff in 2004 (and re-elected her last year) and that the three serious candidates for mayor of Houston this fall include a black man and a white lesbian."

Golden Rule

2009-07-29T05:26:00.001-07:00

(Thanks Nick Anderson)

Yep

2009-07-23T05:11:00.001-07:00

(Thanks to David Horsey)

Times Have Changed

2009-07-19T05:43:00.001-07:00

(Thanks to Dan Piraro)

Brilliant

2009-07-17T05:26:00.000-07:00

(Thanks to David Horsey).

Your Liberal Media

2009-07-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

Strikes again.

Marchons!

2009-07-14T07:49:00.000-07:00

Here's your Bastille Day treat:

Yep

2009-07-06T04:48:00.000-07:00

Tbogg gets it right:

"Sarah Palin isn't smart in what we might call conventional ways, but she has grifter smarts and knows that she can make a better living working the wingnut welfare circuit preaching to the already converted than she can in politics. She'll never be President; you know it and she knows it. Everyone should know it. But there are a lot of rubes out there who think she's got a shot and they're just dumb enough to pay good money thinking it will happen. That is what she's counting on."

Things Are Always Bigger in Texas

2009-07-03T10:28:00.000-07:00

From today's Dallas Morning News story about the local Tea Party:

"A promotional company director helped arrange T-shirt sales and donations. Others helped line up speakers and entertainment, such as former Monkee Mickey Dolenz.

'We wanted to go big,' Dennis said."

Sanford Emails

2009-06-25T06:32:00.000-07:00

I kow some people are going to have a problem with TPM and other outlets publishing Sanford's emails. In most cases, I would have been opposed to releasing these very personal communicaotins. They are excruciating to read for a number of reasons. But this piece of crap has invaded and politicized the private lives of women and gays over choice and marriage equality, and he has damaged the lives of thousands of South Carolinians through his hard-hearted refusal to take the stimulus money. So anything that destroys his own life, both personal and political, is ok with me. No mercy. Not this time.

Yglesias on the Villagers

2009-06-24T10:21:00.000-07:00

I know this is right:

[T]he kind of reporters who basically sit around and in virtue of the fact that their employers are important get to ask not-very-interesting questions of powerful politicians and then dutifully write the answers down (or record the answers on tape and have an intern transcribe them) are facing a kind of crisis of prestige and authority. It turns out lots of people can do the job perfectly well, even people who haven’t “paid their dues” or gotten a job at an established media outlet.

Animal People. . .

2009-06-20T09:13:00.001-07:00

. . .will get it.

Yep

2009-06-18T04:47:00.000-07:00

Tony Auth Gets It

2009-06-14T05:11:00.000-07:00

Unlike Toles (ses previous post), Tony Auth is strictly a Village kinda guy. So may be the idea that the crazies really are crazy is finally making it into those circles.

Toles Says It All

2009-06-12T06:31:00.001-07:00

Funny

2009-06-10T07:37:00.000-07:00

This is the funniest commercial I've seen in awhile. Of course, the scolds are all over it.

Ryan Avent Rules

2009-06-06T05:40:00.000-07:00

Few people get to the basic dumbassery of the national press better than Ryan Avent. Read this to see why.

I Know That's Right

2009-06-05T17:11:00.000-07:00

Worth remembering from Daniel Gross.

"[T]he notion that the market is telling us something—anything—ultimately rests on the erroneous assumption that financial markets represent the collective wisdom of rational actors processing information efficiently . . . The markets resemble the Star Wars bar scene more than they do the economics faculty lounge at Princeton."

Making Sense

2009-06-01T08:04:00.001-07:00

Worth reading from James Surowiecki. Here's the takwaway:

[M]ost of the people predicting disaster as a result of higher interest rates don’t think there was ever a hope of recovery to begin with.

Onward, Christian Soldiers

2009-05-31T09:51:00.000-07:00

From The Wichita Eagle:

George Tiller, the Wichita doctor who became a national lightning rod in the debate over abortion, was shot to death Sunday morning as he walked into church services.

Good Point

2009-05-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

The excellent Felix Salmon has a good point here, and one that's worth remembering.

"Bill Gross seems to have caused a bit of an uproar with his off-the-cuff comment to Reuters:

Asked what is driving the market declines, Gross told Reuters via email that investors fear the U.S. is “going the way of the U.K. — losing AAA rating which affects all financial assets and the dollar.”

On the one hand, as ex post explanations for market declines go, this one’s quite good: if true, it helps explains why both stocks and bonds are going down on the same day. What’s more, it tidily fits in to a news story — that S&P has downgraded the UK’s triple-A outlook — and journalists love any explanation for a market move which makes it seem that it’s some predictable result of an event in the news.

But let’s get some perspective here. The Dow and the S&P 500 closed down 1.5% and 1.9% respectively, which by recent standards is a perfectly normal move, well within the range of what you’d expect on any given day. What’s more, S&P putting the UK on watch for a possible downgrade is a decision prompted by economic fundamentals. Any such move with the US, by contrast, would be entirely political, and in any event would say much more about S&P than it did about Treasuries.

The most important thing to remember here, however, is that ratings agencies don’t matter any more. They lost their credibility when structured finance blew up, and the number of people buying Treasuries because S&P says that they’re triple-A rated is exactly zero.

There are lots of triple-A rated securities; people buy Treasuries because they’re liquid. The US triple-A may or may not disappear at some point, but if and when that happens it’ll be a lagging indicator, and there will already be a select group of alternative securities which are trading at lower yields in dollars. So long as Treasuries have the lowest yields in the dollar-denominated world, they will retain their triple-A, and there are much more important things to worry about."

Obama Fu

2009-05-18T06:17:00.000-07:00

Re: Obama's Notre Dame commencement address and its attendant "controversy."

Another way to describe this appearance would be to say that BO wiped the floor with these assholes, enjoyed doing it, and came off looking better than they ever could. Once again, this guy proves to me that he knows more about what he's doing than I do. Remarkable.

Good Read

2009-05-14T05:59:00.000-07:00

This from Ryan Avent is worth posting in its entirety.

So, the economic news today hasn’t been all that great — retail sales were off a bit in April, foreclosures filings were at a record in April for a second straight month, and Chinese industrial production and export figures disappointed. This has led every clever pundit to say something clever like “the green shoots are turning brown,” or “the green shoots are withering,” etc. This has annoyed me.

It occurs to me that the problem may be in the vagueness of the phrase “green shoots” — that we’re all thinking about different things. Picture the path of economic output as a sine wave tilted slightly upward, after each peak, the path begins to decline. Initially, it is declining at an increasing rate. Then an inflection point is hit and it begins declining at a decreasing rate. Eventually, the rate of decline hits zero, a trough is reached, and output begins to increase but remains well below the level of the previous peak. Finally, output surpasses the long run trendline and begins heading toward yet another peak. So what part of this curve is green shootish?

For some people, only a return to previous output levels will count as green shoots. For others, only an end to actual contraction — where the rate of decline hits zero — is a marker of the greening of various shoots. Still others might herald the inflection point at which contraction slows as green, a harbinger of better times to come. When I speak about green shoots in the economy, I’m using this last interpretation. This is quickly dismissed by pessimists who say things like, “Things are just getting worse more slowly!” Quite so. That is exactly how one moves from things getting worse more quickly to things getting better. And I think it’s quite difficult to argue that we have not hit and passed the inflection point. The economy being a big, complex, unwieldy thing, we shouldn’t expect every datapoint to describe a perfect curve; we’re going to have good months and bad months in the data all the way through the recovery. But the trends in the data seem clear — a bottom is approaching.

Now others have voiced different complaints vis-a-vis green shoots, namely, that they’ll be rather stumpy for a long time to come. This is an argument over the shape of recession: V-shaped (a recovery as steep as the decline), U-shaped (a bit more laggardly), or L-shaped (very weak growth and a stubbornly high unemployment rate). I have some thoughts about this that I’ll get to later, but insofar as the green shoot debate concerns whether a bottom is near or not, the shape of the upslope is irrelevant.

And we ought to expect that the end of contraction is near. Megan makes some points about the Great Depression here, writing:

"I don’t want to push the Great Depression analogy too far, but what’s surprising when you go back to primary sources from 1930 is the optimism. I don’t mean to imply that everyone thinks things are just swell. But while you know that they are facing the worst economic decade of the twentieth century, they don’t. They’re expecting something more like the recession that followed World War I. People are cutting back, but they’re still spending, particularly because companies are slashing prices to move inventory. It was the long grind of the years that followed, and the catastrophe of the second banking crisis, that scarred them permanently. And this shows up in the economics stats and the stock market, which did not, as we like to imagine, simply decline in a straight line."

Two important things to note. First, we give the Depression the modifier “great” because it was so remarkably unusual in its depth and length. Second, policymakers worked extremely hard to make the Depression long and deep. The lesson there, to me, is that only very rarely do economies contract longer and deeper than the current downturn, and when they do it is generally because policymakers are actively pursuing pro-cyclical policies. Otherwise, they pull themselves out of their nosedives long before they get into Depression-like levels of output and unemployment.

So when Matt says:

"I will say that I think the greatest objective economic risk at this point is policymaker over-optimism. We need the European Central bank to continue loosening monetary policy, and it wouldn’t hurt if some of the world’s lesser central banks followed suit. We could use more stimulus in the United States and elsewhere in the developed world. We need corporate executives to understand the main risk to their interests to be coming from a lack of adequate economic recovery efforts rather than from losing small-bore political arguments with congressional Democrats. We need smart growth policy in terms of tax reform and trade. We need, in short, policymakers to continue to be worried. If they’re worried, and if they act on those worries, then more likely than not things won’t stay too bad for too long. But if they feel confident, then we might really be in trouble."

I say that an outright reversal of countercyclical policies — monetary tightening and deficit slashing — would kick us back into an accelerating downturn situation, but merely holding steady will at most delay a bottom for a few months and flatten the recovery. And even if policymakers hold steady, policy will continue to improve. As financial markets relax — and credit indicators do continue to improve — loose monetary policy will increase in potency. And of course, fiscal stimulus has only begun to trickle out (and simply by dint of the broader downturn, the federal deficit is growing, which is stimulative).

Caveats apply — some new shoe could drop or Congress could lose its mind and enact a spending freeze. But I don’t really see how people can avoid concluding that the worst declines are behind us.

http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/?p=2039

Good Advice

2009-05-13T11:13:00.000-07:00

From Ryan Avent:

If every piece of bad news is definitive evidence that the economy is not moving toward recovery, then surely every piece of good news is definitive evidence that it is.

http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/?p=2037

Rooms to Let, Fifty Cents

2009-05-11T15:38:00.000-07:00

Dallas voters will rue the day they followed their exuberantly mendacious mayor down the path of his ambition. But at least the voters in District 13 had the good sense to send Tom Hicks sock puppet Brint Ryan home to look for his speeding tickets (I'll bet he got there before anybody else did). So the day wasn't a total loss.

Good Advice

2009-05-01T05:02:00.000-07:00

(Thanks to Nick Anderson)

OMG!!! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

2009-04-27T06:02:00.000-07:00

Or not.

Lousy media.

Big Time

2009-04-24T09:59:00.000-07:00

Ryan Avent gets it.

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2009/04/24/non-economic-questions-of-the-day

Still Clueless

2009-04-23T07:53:00.001-07:00

Here'a another economist with his view on the latest unemployment numbers released thius morning. It's a good example of the kind of emptiness these guys usually display.

“After the unexpected Easter-related drop in claims last week we expected a bigger rebound, taking claims back to their highs of around 670K. The failure to rise that high suggests either that the trend in claims is peaking or that the data are still affected by seasonal problems related to the holiday,” writes Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics."

Shorter Ian Sheperdson: I have no idea what these figures mean, but I'm sure they mean something!

http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2009/04/23/never-mind-the-economy-killer-apps/

Sludge Rising

2009-04-14T12:26:00.001-07:00

In the early 90s, I listened regularly to a short-wave radio station called WWCR (World Wide Christian Radio)—500,000 watts from Nashville. They carried programs like Radio Free America and The Hour of the Time, farragoes of black helicopter, FEMA, New World Order-fueled paranoia that managed to be hilarious and terrifying. But this was short wave, fringe broadcasting that few people ever heard. Now, I hear the same stuff on Fox News. It’s mainstreamed and even in some quarters acceptable. I once heard Chris Matthews mention “the wonderful Michael Savage” on Hardball. Now that’s scary, and it’s not hilarious any more.

Spitzer Rehab

2009-04-06T09:22:00.001-07:00

Over at Talking Points Memo, David Kurtz writes "Spitzer is so good on financial issues that I alternate between sadness and anger for his stupidity." This is exactly the wrong response. The correct response is anger at the idiocy of a system and at the hypocrisy of a media that would banish this guy while allowing David Vitter (and other sleazy wingnuts) to continue their careers as though nothing happened.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/04/spitzer_rehab_tour_continues.php

Voting Rights

2009-04-03T18:58:00.000-07:00

It's a gosh darn shame the crummy bond markets prevented Mayor Leppert from starting his hotel project before the taxpayers had a chance to voice their opinion of it.

Naming Rights

2009-04-03T18:54:00.000-07:00

Let' s start calling this the Bush Depression. Every reference. Every time.

Can't Dance, Can't Sing . . .

2009-04-01T14:53:00.000-07:00

I found this clip on You Tube. It's a must see for lameness fans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPiamDHia1s

When two sixty year-old guys have better dance moves than you do, it is time perhaps to dance no more.

You Say You Want a Revolution?

2009-03-27T19:47:00.000-07:00

Cong. Michele Bachmann (R-Looney Bin) has been all over the teevee lately with her especially hilarous brand of wingnuttery. First, she grilled Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke about a non-existant Chinese plot to replace the dollar with a "world currency" (Bernanke was clearly saying something like "Who is this idiot?" to himself during her questioning). Then she went on Hannity's show to promote sedition. TPM has more:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/03/bachmann-blasts-obamas-economic-marxism-calls-for-revolution-to-save-freedom.php

The business about a one world currency is a primary thread in Christian extremist end times mythology, so this Chinese statement was right in her wheelhouse.

Self-defense

2009-03-27T13:33:00.000-07:00

The Dallas Morning News yesterday ran a response from Managing Editor George Rodrique regarding Michael Lindenburger's recent story about Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert's um, shall we say, less than honest statements during the Trinity Tollroad campaign. In short, our oleaginous Mayor's a bald-faced liar. Rodrique's spirited defense of his paper, which has consistently and unflinchingly endorsed this Dallas version of Boston's infamous Big Dig, certainly had some amusing moments. The sneering condescension toward the Dallas Observer and its "tiny staff" is pretty funny, when you consider that Rodrique's own staff is getting tinier all the time. And self-congratulating professions about the nobility of its journalistic enterprise from the paper that continues to employ Alan Peppard while it jettisons Ed Bark, Phil Wuntch, Jerome Weeks, David Dillon and Gerry Fraley (along with hundreds of others) are always good for a laugh. But the best part was the statement that "we don't write propaganda." Bwahahahahahah!

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/askeditor/stories/032709dnediasktheeditor.72a272dc.html

The Right Move

2009-03-26T07:06:00.000-07:00

My pal Greg Sargent has an update describing Obama's latest attempt to counter the baleful influence of the Village media whores. This is absolutely the right move, and not just for his own political benefits. The hold the corrupt, shallow and decadent Village media has on the national discourse must be broken, completely and permanently.

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/democratic-national-committee/obama-raps-cable-tv-chatter-hits-dc-culture-as-petty/

"It's Bipartisan!"

2009-03-25T11:08:00.000-07:00

Following the lead of our Village betters, I think we should begin to use "bipartisan" as a universal term of praise, as in," Great dinner tonight, honey. Really bipartisan!" or "wow, that new dress makes you look bipartisan!" or "You're the most bipartisanest little kitty cat in the whole wide world!" This usage makes about as much sense as any usage I've heard from Broder and his pals. In fact, I think this is the most bipartisan idea I've ever had.

Press Corps Clown Car

2009-03-25T04:20:00.000-07:00

That the Village media is a national disgrace was again in evidence last night during Obama's press conference. Asking people who are already sacrificing to make sacrifices? Too bad that press conference decorum prohibits the only answer such a question really deserves: "That is the stupidest question I've ever heard, you stupid moron." But the winner for my money was the odious Major Garret from Fox News (natch) with his idiotic framing of a question about monetary policy and our European allies: "OMG!!! Communists!!! Socialists!!! Left of center!!!" What a maroon.

History Lesson

2009-03-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite guys, Zach Karabell, has an excellent column in the WSJ offering some historical perspective on our boom-and-bust cycle past. Zach is a very smart guy. The fact that he's a regular contributor on CNBC shouldn't be held against him. He's no wingnut like most of those loons.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123742239255278903.html

A Little Calm, Please

2009-03-20T13:29:00.000-07:00

Terence Samuel has a good article in The American Prospect (Web only) about the AIG stink. Everybody needs to take a deep breath.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=tell_us_a_story_mr_president

Retire This!

2009-03-20T04:45:00.001-07:00

When the recession is over, whenever that is, I hope I never again hear the term "cliff-diving."

Coulter on Kudlow

2009-03-12T16:39:00.000-07:00

Ann Coulter climbed out of the Kudlow Klown Kar on CNBC tonight. She looked and sounded . . . not insane. She was wearing soft, pastel colors, her make-up softened her harsh, skanky features, she sat behind a desk so those spindly legs weren't shoved in the audience's face, and she spoke calmly and sensibly, offering some fairly ordinary lawyerly remarks about the Madoff case. Not a trace of the crazed wingnut at all. It was very strange. Could she be modifying her marketing strategy to accomodate the new realities?

The Oracle

2009-03-12T05:03:00.000-07:00

I'm continually puzzled by the uncritical acceptance Nouriel Roubini's predictions receive, especially from some elements in the blogosphere who are otherwise usually pretty skeptical of such persons. Roubini made a good call two years ago. But that doesn't mean his every pronouncement since then has any more predictive value than anyone else's. The idea that he possesses some superior insight or that he is some kind of disinterested commentator is silly. He's just talking his book. That's what they all do.

A Little Daylight

2009-03-11T17:53:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite guys, Zach Karabell, has a good column in Newsweek. He's always worth a read. http://www.newsweek.com/id/188170

Are You Depressed yet?

2009-03-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

The excellent and always informative Calculated Risk answers this question: http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/03/what-is-depression.html

"Some people argue the duration of the economic slump defines a depression - and the current recession is already 15 months old. That is longer than the recessions of '90/'91 and '01. The '73-'75 recession lasted 16 months peak to trough, and the early '80s recession (a double dip) was classified as a 6 month recession followed by a 16 month recession (22 months total). Those earlier periods weren't "depressions", so if duration is the key measure, the current recession still has a ways to go... Even though the current recession is already one of the worst since 1947, it is only about 1/3 of the way to a depression (assuming a terrible Q1). To reach a depression, the economy would have to decline at about a 6.6% annual rate each quarter for the next year... I still think a depression is very unlikely. More likely the economy will bottom later this year or at least the rate of economic decline will slow sharply. I also still believe that the eventual recovery will be very sluggish, and it will take some time to return to normal growth."

Just Checking

2009-03-10T06:26:00.001-07:00

John McCain lost the election, right?

Question Time

2009-03-09T07:42:00.000-07:00

What does John McCain say?