The definition of a recession is when your neighbor's out of a job; the definition of a depression is when you're out of a job.

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The basic “Economics for Dummies” definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters in which the value of the Gross National Product does not grow. But what that REALLY defines is a “Corporate Recession”.

Let’s look at another kind of recession, one that's never talked about: a CONSUMER recession. If we use the same parameters as we used in the Corporate Recession then a Consumer Recession would begin when two consecutive quarters pass in which the value of our own individual Gross PERSONAL Product does not grow.

Let’s begin with wages. Wages are usually measured in dollars. But since we’re not talking about “income” we received, but the product we can buy with that income, then we have to measure the value of the products (and services) we can purchase with the dollars we have “produced” by our work and investing.

For example, we may be buying more gasoline and food than ever before. But that’s only if we measure those purchases in dollars. When you look at the AMOUNT of gasoline and the amount of the food we use, that can go down even as our expenditures in dollars goes up. In short, our cosumption in dollars could increase at the same time the “personal product” we realize is decreasing.

Now, what about those benefits? Benefits traditionally included retirement and medical care. These have decreased significantly over the past several years. Meanwhile the cost to the individual to buy or use any of these “benefit packagess” (i.e. medical insurance and retirement) on his or her own has soared.

Another “benefit” consumers have received are various government programs which have provided money or services of value to the individual. These, of course, have also diminished over the past 30 years or so, and we find more and more programs being “privatized”, which means that the cost of those programs will always continue to rise while the services and products provided will always decrease.

And what about "Imputed Taxes" - those contributions we have to make to lobbyist groups to represent us in congress. These keep going up, too. Our representatives are “supposed” to represent us. We “shouldn’t” have to hire “congressional mercenaries” to represent us to our own represenatives. But here is another place we are in competition with corporations. They spend much more money than we can to influence our representatives, and they use the money we have paid them to buy the goods and services they produce for us that we buy. Therefore, their payment to their lobbyists are also part of their expense of “doing business” therefore we pay that their lobbyist's costs as well as our own.

Well, if you figure all this out, and agree with me, then it is obvious that we are IN and HAVE been in a recession for a long time. And if you look into these figures closely, they you may WELL feel a depression coming on.

PrettyPenny

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Our grocery bill has doubled. We've taken a $10K hit on our retirement fund and it appears to be in free-fall. Our gasoline bill has doubled. Both the Gas Company and The Electric Company raised their bills. There are up to thirty cars for sale on the street just in a few square miles arond our home. There are for sale signs on houses around us by the dozen.
We can only gird ourselves for something worse!

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On the Rachel Maddow show on Air America. He said this economic trouble will be the worst this country has experienced since the Great Depression. He also said it will be similar to what the Japanese economy went through about 10 years ago... and that lasted for 10 years. He said it may not be as long... but it will be far deeper.

We're in for a complete and utter economic meltdown that most of us couldn't even imagine. I'm not an economist so I don't know the technicalities of what constitutes a recession vs. a depression, but I do know that I feel a very heavy presence coming on. I know that when I talk to my family, friends, neighbors they are all feeling it, too. I'm very afraid for our country. And I think that whoever is elected president next is going to have an impossible task. If this depression does happen, it's going to take at least a generation to fully recover because we don't have the usual means to work ourselves out of it. We have to import everything. We have no manufacturing base anymore to produce our own goods. The dollar is worthless. Our stock market is waaaaaay over-valued and ready for a deep downturn. Inflation has caused the cost of everyday items to skyrocket. People are in debt up to their eyeballs, with no safety cushion of savings to help supplement our income, if we have any. Our government has a $9-trillion dollar debt, for Chrissake!!! Oh, this is gonna be bad, I'm afraid.

America is going to get a huge wake-up call. And the author is right... it can all be laid in the Republican's laps. Starting with Reagan. But our "Decider" has decided not to do anything meaningful to stop this death spiral we're heading for. There are things he could do, but he's choosing not to do them. His advisors, Bernanke and Paulson, are telling him more needs to be done, but he is choosing to ignore their suggestions. Even the right-wing economists are recognizing this train-wreck, but our "Fearless Leader" is ignoring reality, once again, and, instead, would rather dance and sing and look the absolute fool that he is.

We had better try and figure out a way to help each other get through what is headed our way. My greatest fear is that the "me! me! me!" mentality that Americans have so fully embraced will kick in and we will see survival of the fittest played out right in our own neighborhoods. I think it's gonna get real ugly.

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of the gop economy is

Ponzinomics.

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For a majority of Americans this will be a depression it will be long lasting and will also be accompanied by vast numbers of homeless Americans...

With up to so far 8.8 million homes up for foreclosures and that being from 20 to over 30 million Americans needing housing and the negative downward pressure it will put on the already inflated and limited rental market there will be a serious negative trickle down effect..

The Bear Sterns bailout is just the beginning and others are at risk..

The saddest thing is there solution for the sub prime mortgages part of this crisis is so simple...

Just peg the Sub Prime Mortgages at 3% over Prime and forgive all penalties to date 1/2 of which are illegal anyway..and problem solved and no Tax Payer need bail out either the lenders or those who bought into these stupid mortgages and bad paper..

This would also save the terrible effects coming to the rental market due to all these folks, families, Americans needing housing...!

Bush and Norquist and David Rockefeller want to bankrupt America to as to destroy it and wipe away all and any of the social safety net and also help create Rockefeller and Prescott Bush's international global fascist corporate one world government wet dream and all who support Bush whether they a know it or not are traitors..and De Facto Fascists..

This isn't about what's best for America or Free Trade or the Global Economy same as all this privatization which is just another word for fascism...

This is David Rockefeller's One World Bankers Fascist Government in it's birth pains..

It is a sort of Socialism for the Elite and Super Rich but not Nationalist at all, it's International Global Fascist Socialism for the Elite..!

We could just peg the Sub Prime Mortgages at 3% over Prime and solve much of this and also enact Usery laws and adjust the insane credit card industry with a write down across the board or as my brother says a Leviticus Year to get things back to not just normal but sane and moral, but we have Fascists controlling our government and banking industry and these secret groups such as the Bilderbergers which our fascist corporate lame media would even dare mention the existence of...calling the shots..!

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Suck gas from a hedge fund CEO's Hummer (or more likely - Mazerati). Pitchforks and torches.

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Suck gas from a hedge fund CEO's Hummer (or more likely - Mazerati). Pitchforks and torches.

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At first no one wanted say the R word. Now they're openly mentioning the D word. Soon it will be the other R word - Revolution.

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He said that the company should have been allowed to go bankrupt. That way the execs wouldn't have got to keep their billions in bonuses. As it was, the crooks kept their bonuses, JP Morgan got a steal of a deal, and the shareholders got screwed.

The bailout was pure "socialism for the rich". You want to know why the economy is in such a mess? The Bear Stearns bailout should tell you all you need to know.

For you who don't know Jim Rogers, he started the first hedge fund back in the 1970s with George Soros. He now runs a comodities fund, and is the author of INVESTMENT BIKER.

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Now that we're seeing foreclosures in unprecedented numbers, and we're still hemorrhaging jobs every month, it's a full-on Depression. This is why we need to impeach Bush - every single day he's in office damages this country's economy as well as our reputation in the world. The sooner we end it, the better. He's made it clear he doesn't give a damn about people losing their homes any more than he cares about soldiers losing their lives for profit.

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We are on the edge of a major depression. The first step to avoid it is to end the war in Iraq. We simply CANNOT AFFORD it any longer. The public has to rise up and demand that we turn our attention and resourses to rescuing our own economy. If our economy collapses, it doesn't matter what happens in Iraq. If Bush does not end the war quickly, he should be impeached.

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