Now that is one "spooky" but "funny" photo!!LOL..

CP is the chicken man and newest JYD. I bet he has a chicken pic for every occasion! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

We're already in a "small-d" depression, although most politicos won't admit it, the question is "how deep will it be". I don't think we'll ever see another 1929 Great Depression because of regulatory safeguards, even as weak as they've become. The reason that this depression has come about is that newer pieces of the financial markets were basically unregulated, and the Fed's regulatory enforcement of the rest was intentionally lax going back through the Regan administration. I'm not saying it's a Republican thing; Democrats were every bit as much to blame and it's a problem with more than just Wall street & banking.

I think it has more to do with campaign finance and lobbying laws -- politicians owe too much to the people they're supposed to oversee, and high-level bureaucrats who the public depends on to enforce regulations know that if they "play nice" they'll be taken care of by their industry when they transition into the private sector. I recall "60-minutes" and "Frontline" episodes which highlight when somebody tries to enforce regulations, calls are made and they get shutdown -- money talks.

I don't know what the balance is, because I recognize that in order to be profitable, industries shouldn't be unreasonably burdened by regulations. However, I also recognize that most companies have no conscience on their balance sheet; incentives are set so that short-term gains outweigh long-term viability. The only incentive to worry about long term is legal liability, and they've been fairly successful lobbying for tort reform, so that they needn't worry about that as much as they used to. I think that there should be personal liability for wrongdoing assigned to the Chief Officers, Presidents, VPs, and Boards of Directors -- if their company acted irresponsibly, then they should be stripped of their personal fortunes to help pay for the damages. I'm getting a bit off track, and before I digress into proposing public burnings at the stake, I need to calm down...

Anyway, as I said, we are in a depression; Federal spending should help pull us out, but I expect to see increasing inflation, increasing interest rates, decreases in home values will probably be long term, and I can't even predict what the long-term effects of our ballooning Federal debt will be. States are in an even worse position because many of their constitutions will not allow them to have a debt, which limits their ability to provide services to help with increased unemployment (which decreases their tax revenues while increasing their spending). A recovery won't mean a return to the "hot economy" that we had for over a decade before this house of cards fell apart, and there will be more Federal regulations, if not an actual nationalization of at least some parts of the banking system. If we're really lucky, we'll also end up with a Federal government that's more interested in protecting the interests of citizens rather than of their campaign contributors.

I voted that we ARE in a depression. Now the depression we are in, will be in, is not like the Great Depression. There are too many differences between then and now. However, how bad the current one will be is not only dependent on us, the U.S., but also the rest of the world. The sad fact is we are dependent on other nations and how they react to the current situation--just look at China throwing their displeasure comments around. Hell, Europe is not too keen on doing much about it either. I guess the majority of the other countries forget who rebuilt them after that little tiff we call WWII. I hope, and pray everyday, that we can pull out of this situation.

i had to think some and i can't definitively answer this but after a little thought i said no. this mess is all wall street, and though the effects of wall street can be felt far and wide, the truth is that companies that are dependent on their stock price, the pro cyclical entities, are doing the most suffering.

well they should, it's their fault. non-cyclical, publicly held businesses and private businesses (even investment firms) are doing quite well in terms of earnings ratios. they don't have to worry about investor confidence to build equity. of publicly held companies, those with attractive debt to equity ratios are also looking good long term and generally healthy in the earnings department. their stock prices are suffering, but that's not critical to them as a going concern.

as for the question in the original post, take the first and second derivatives of the three month moving average of the various domestic stock indices to see if we've heat the trough or headed for a waterfall.

now that i've denied the bleak future, i'm gonna run to amazon and order all those SHTF books.

i voted no if anyone cares.

some of our clients are feeling the heat. but most arent even phased. we've actually had more work coming in so....i dunno.

Well I sure as heck don't know. I voted yes, but this is one time I'd love to be wrong.

every now and then there's a cleansing catastrophe that levels out and the world.

the past couple days i've been thinkin that my generation's is coming.

I voted no. A recession yes, depression no. I'm thinking we will start to see some changes for the better by September.

People are living in fear right now, you can see it on their faces and in their eyes. They are afraid to do anything, good, bad, or otherwise. Most of them need to quit watching the news, turn off the radio, put their boots back on and go take on the day!

Well said!!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

There are some fear mongers in the news, that's for sure. There is a lot of uncertainty, and this is just my opinion, but some of the new President's actions have probably caused more uncertainty among investors and businessmen.

as of right now, a majority of those who voted say "no depression". That's interesting.

I've still got a job, but 8 of the people in my department (or about 30%) were laid off last Monday. We still hadn't recovered from last year's layoffs (there are a couple open positions in the department, but there's also been a hiring freeze), so that probably affects how I feel current economic conditions. There are around half as many people in IT as when I started there in 2002. Our RIFs were early, but the rest of the organization will probably go through the process within a couple weeks -- as you can imagine, the mood is very insecure.

It seems like inflation indexes are being held down by falling prices in the big-ticket items that people can put off buying until they feel more secure, but the day-to-day necessities, like groceries seem to still be up despite decreases in fuel prices.