Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

What The Double Dip Recession Will Look Like

“Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the economy has yet to hit bottom, a sharply higher percentage than the 53% who felt that way in January,” according to a recent Wall Street Journal poll.


A growing and vocal minority of economists believes that there will be a double dip recession primarily because of the intransigence of high unemployment and the rapidly faltering housing market. The notion of a “jobless recovery” has been around since the recessions of the 1950s and 1960s. It is a concept built on a relatively simple idea: employment lags during a recession but it is always part of a recovery cycle. Production rises as businesses see the end of a downturn and anticipate improving sales. They are reluctant to hire new workers until the recovery is confirmed, but once it has been, hiring picks up.


The 2008 – 2009 recession was – if it is indeed over – different from any other because of its depth and causes. The first trigger was the drop in housing prices, which robbed many people of their primary access to capital. As that access disappeared, so did the availability of credit. Consumer buying power evaporated and business cut inventory and production. Joblessness rose. Finally, consumer confidence plunged.


The last downturn was so great that in some months more than 500,000 people lost jobs. The unemployment rolls are now more than 8 million, and perhaps more gravely, over 1.4 million people have been out of work for over 99 weeks – which means they are no longer eligible to receive unemployment insurance benefits. This segment of the population has already begun to add to the number of indigent Americans and will continue to do so unless they can find homes with friends and family.


The second dip of the recession that ended in 2009, according to economists and the federal government, is likely to begin within the next two quarters.

Read more: What the Double Dip Recession Will Look Like - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2010/08/13/what-the-double-dip-recession-will-look-like/#ixzz0xcafXEYO


Read more: What the Double Dip Recession Will Look Like - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2010/08/13/what-the-double-dip-recession-will-look-like/#ixzz0xca6nkni

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The 2nd leg down will be initiated by the caring and concerned federal government who insists on paying back the Federal Reserve for all the money the PRINTED to buy our U.S. Treasuries. Not only will we the people pay them back for PRINTING the money, but we will pay them some interest (profit) for their efforts.

It is very tiring and demanding to push buttons and create MONEY out of thin air. They have to enter digits onto computer screens (sometimes under harsh flourescent lighting conditions for hours upon hours) and then transfer funds from Federal Reserve bank accounts into personal bank accounts. Sometimes referred to as BONUS money, these wealthy hard working executives work tirelessly to PRINT money so that our government can continue to provide us with food stamps, welfare checks, social security checks, and so on.

Money is sometimes diverted from much needed military funds (which go to the likes of Lockheed Martin, Martin Maretta, GE, Haliburton, Carlyle Group, etc) just to provide the poor with their food and shelter. What's more is this ridiculous dependency on Social Security that old people have simply because they have paid tirelessly into a forced taxation of their income for a lifetime - they now EXPECT to get free money in return!

Yep, a 2nd leg down is in order. It will be caused by Austerity Measures (like we have seen in Greece, Spain and Portugal). We need to pay our debts America!

Anonymous said...

Get ready!! It's gonna be a rough ride.

Anonymous said...

How can we have a double dip recession when we are still in the first one? Regardless of what the propogandists are saying-things are still pretty bad. Unemployment has gone up again and housing sales are the worst on record. The commusists in charge are trying to keep the public from knowing how bad it really is until after the elections-then they can blame republicans and the ignorant among us will buy it-hook, line and sinker.