[arete]

Looks like most are still in denial so I guess we have a long way to go yet.

Richard W.

[sinkspur]

How many people do you know who have been laid off? I know plenty.

I don't know anybody who voted for Al Gore.

Does that mean he didn't get any votes?

This is the dumbest article in the financial realm I've ever read.

[valkyrieanne]

Looks like most are still in denial so I guess we have a long way to go yet.

I don't agree w/ the parts about deflation (WHAT deflation? Has he priced health insurance lately?) However, the part about housing is spot on. The economy *is* being fueled by home equity loans. There *is* an insurance problem with buying shells & fixer-uppers. The middle class *is* being squeezed into higher & higher-priced markets (meaning they're taking on big mortgage debt, even if the borrowing rates are low), and at some point there is going to be a housing correction. Coming on top of unemployment / underemployment, it is going to hit some people very hard, and will reverberate through the whole economy.

[dljordan]

Kind of like my dear wife. I keep saying "buy gold" and she keeps saying "golds not worth anything". I've given up.

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

Not denial, its just that the article has to prove its claims. I remember 1990 and 1979. When it gets that bad, let me know because we are a long way off. Even in 1991, on weekends you were not going to get a seat at a $5 blackjack table without a grenade. Nowadays, make that a $10 blackjack table...

[JoeSchem]

Looks like most are still in denial so I guess we have a long way to go yet.

Wait a sec, I thought depressions were caused by a lack of consumer confidence. Now you're telling me that they're caused by too much consumer confidence?

The truth is, I've been hearing about how the sky is falling ever since high school back in the 1970s. There was no hyperinflation then, the commies didn't take over America. There was no Great Depression despite Time Magazine tracking the 1987 stock market crash against the 1929 crash. There was no Great Depression of 1991, despite the bestseller by that name. Then the trade deficit was to have made us forever subordinate to Japan. We're still waiting for Ross Perot's predictions of federal deficits out of control (made back in 1996, no less) leading to economic collapse. And of course, that Giant Sucking Sound you hear is Ross Perot backpedaling about his prediction that NAFTA would send all our jobs to Mexico (then why are all the Mexicans coming here???).

It's only to be expected that once the unemployment rate rose by two ticks above full employment, the Chicken Littles would start screaming.

Yes, I'm in denial. I have thirty years of experience telling me that denial works, whereas listening to these Bonapartes is a good way to flush all your money down the drain.

If only I had bought T-bills at 13% in the early 1980s! But the doom-and-gloomers told me that the economy was about to go into hyperinflation, so bonds were a waste of time.

[Always Right]

Looks like most are still in denial so I guess we have a long way to go yet. Richard W.

Where's this 'Greatest Depression' you promised????