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Viagra helps women taking antidepressants overcome the sexual dysfunction that can be a side effect of taking the medication, new research says. Researchers from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine found that women who took the erectile dysfunction drug sildenafil, a.k.a Viagra, had an improvement in sexual function in contrast to women who took a placebo. The findings are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The researchers said this is the first randomized controlled trial showing that there is a treatment for the sexual dysfunction that women experience as a result of taking antidepressants. According...

RGE Monitor MEDIA ALERT: Nouriel Roubini predicts the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and the worst U.S. Recession in the last few decades. New York, July 15, 2008- In a series of recent writings on the RGE Monitor Nouriel Roubini - Chairman of RGE Monitor and Professor of Economics at the NYU Stern School of Business - has argued that the U.S. is experiencing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and will undergo its worst recession in the last few decades. His analysis leads to the following conclusions: This is by far the worst financial crisis...

The Psychology of Ben Bernanke: The Great Depression was caused by the Federal Reserve. Was he Talking About the current Great Depression that is Sprouting Under his Watch? Lessons From the Great Depression: Part XIII. The Federal Reserve. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke this week once again mentioned that the Federal Reserve was “strongly committed” to financial stability and is considering options like keeping the lending facilities open to primary dealers. In short, they are going to continue to bailout banks and Wall Street firms while Americans get the shaft. This is an important statement and the futures markets are...

Study: Baby Boomers Are Gloomiest Generation POSTED: 9:01 am EDT July 12, 2008 UPDATED: 9:42 am EDT July 12, 2008 NEW YORK -- A new study by the Pew Research Center found 66 percent of baby boomers find it harder to get ahead now than in 1998. It also found that 86 percent say it's harder to maintain their standard of living than just five years ago. We talked to boomers in Brooklyn. "There just seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel." As they approach their golden years, baby boomers like Ros Aaron are worried --...

'It's been described as the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. And it brings with it grave dangers for all American families," said Martin Bashir on "Nightline." "Recession looms ..." On the "Today" show June 20, David Faber referred to "the recession ... these tough economic times." Yet that very day first-quarter gross domestic product was revised upward again to 1%. America is not in recession, and who knows — maybe we'll be less likely to have one if my compatriots would just chill. A recession is defined as two quarters of negative economic growth. We haven't even...

"It's been described as the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. And it brings with it grave dangers for all American families ... ," said Martin Bashir on "Nightline." "Recession looms .... " On the "Today" show June 20, David Faber referred to "the recession ... these tough economic times." Yet that very day first-quarter GDP was revised upward again to 1 percent. America is not in recession, and who knows -- maybe we'll be less likely to have one if my compatriots would just chill. A recession is defined as two quarters of negative economic growth. We...

The top ten likely effects as the bear market bites Patrick Hosking: Business Commentary There is now no doubt about it. Even the cheeriest of optimists would have to acknowledge that we are in the grip of a pronounced bear market. The FTSE 100 has slumped by more than 500 points in the past month and from the peak of last October is down by 18 per cent. At one point yesterday it dived to 5,470, close to the nadir of the Bear Stearns panic in March, although it managed a half-hearted rally at the end of the day. One...

So much for that second-half rebound. Truth be told, that was always more of a wish than a serious forecast, happy talk from the Fed and Wall Street desperate to get things back to normal. It ain't gonna happen. Not this summer. Not this fall. Not even next winter. This thing's going down, fast and hard. Corporate bankruptcies, bond defaults, bank failures, hedge fund meltdowns and 6 percent unemployment. We're caught in one of those vicious, downward spirals that, once it gets going, is very hard to pull out of. Only this will be a different kind of recession --...

It is widely reported that women suffer depression at twice the rate of men. Apparently, more women are clinically depressed than ever before. On the assumption that these assessments are true, the question anyone interested in the subject -- which means anyone who cares about any woman -- asks is, why? In a recent column I offered one explanation -- the impossibly high expectations for happiness that feminism created for many women. There are other possible explanations. One is the way in which many girls have been raised. As every wise person and wise culture in history has known, it...

In 1973 the United State Supreme Court created a woman's "right" to an abortion in a ruling titled, "Roe v. Wade." Many legal scholars believed the court's ruling was based on what is, at best, shaky legal ground. For example, the Constitutional right to privacy is still debated by many legal scholars who say such rights are not clearly defined within the U.S. Constitution. Also, lawyers who presented the case for legalized abortion simply lied concerning statistical data they presented to the nation's highest court. It was said thousands of women had died as a result of "botched back-alley abortions."...

"The government is testing drugs with severe side effects like psychosis and suicidal behavior on hundreds of military veterans, using small cash payments to attract patients into medical experiments that often target distressed soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, a Washington Times/ABC News investigation has found."

Are people's financial burdens stressing them to the point where they might kill themselves? ABC warned that they could be. “Good Morning America” did a segment titled “Recession Depression” on June 10. Reporter Chris Cuomo explained personal finances have people so stressed, they are developing health problems. But he didn’t leave the report there. “The link between financial troubles and psychological problems is well documented,” he said. “In the U.S. the seminal example is the Great Depression, when the suicide rate jumped from 14 to 17 for every 100,000 Americans,” stated Cuomo. “And today, with the threat of recession looming...

The price of crude oil has jumped as high as $135 lately, up from $87 in early February. The news encouraged some Wall Street analysts to suggest oil might approach $200 before long. In fact, that's quite impossible: The world economy can't handle current energy prices, much less a big increase. Which in turn means that oil prices will fall. Market analysts often claim oil prices are almost entirely determined by supply. Demand is said to be insensitive ("inelastic") to price. The standard example is that many Americans have to drive to work and most gas-guzzling SUVs will still be...

Major depressive disorder is a common and complex condition that impacts about 15% of the population of the United States, yet very little is known about the mechanisms behind the psychiatric disorder. What is known is that there are clinical parallels between depressive symptoms and the symptoms of certain inflammatory disorders. In findings published electronically in Molecular Psychiatry, researchers from University of Miami found polymorphisms in inflammation-related genes that are associated with susceptibility to major depression and antidepressant response. Two genes critical for T-cell function in the immune system have been associated with susceptibility for major depressive disorder and antidepressant...

An engineer and energy authority says the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) led by Saudi Arabia wants to drive the world into an economic depression with the eventual goal of establishing a worldwide Islamic caliphate Dr. Robert Zubrin has a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering and is president of Pioneer Astronautics, an aerospace engineering firm. He recently published Energy Victory: Win the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil. He believes the OPEC cartel has consciously decided to restrict the production of oil in the face of growing world demand, and that this year the U.S. is going to...

This is destined to be a grim Memorial Day weekend in the region, what with the price of a gallon of gasoline climbing to $4 a gallon and food costs surging beyond the financial means of consumers. In response to the assault on our wallets, many of us may be forced to scale back our barbecue menu to beans, bread and water. With unemployment moving toward Great Depression-like numbers, businesses being shuttered across the region and many homes in the foreclosure process, more Americans than ever are pessimistic about the future and think our best days are behind us. They...

World War I made gold unstable. . . . In addition, uncertainty over exchange rates and reparations (which were fixed in gold) increased the demand for reserves. In the face of this situation would not the increased demand for gold brought about by a return to the gold standard bring on a deflation? A few economists, like Charles Rist of France, Ludwig von Mises of Austria and Gustav Cassel of Sweden, thought it would. Cassel(1925) had been very explicit even before Britain returned to gold . . . After gold had been restored, Cassel pursued his line of reasoning further,...

Economists received gloomy news last week that the worst economy since the depression grew by over a half percent. “At this rate I’ll be dead before most of humanity is killed and the rest of us are forced to endure a hand-to-mouth existence as subsistence farmers and mastodon hunters,” Malbert Crickendale, economist for the DotPenn financial report said. “I wish the Democrats in Congress would get off their asses and do something to speed up this demise.” Crickendale said that mainstream media’s continual harping on the “subprime implosion,” “credit massacre,” “unprecedented foreclosures” and “Brittany’s meltdown” should have had far worse...

When the smartest guys in the room designed their credit default swaps, they forgot to ask one thing – what if the parties on the other side of the bet don't have the money to pay up? Credit default swaps (CDS) are insurance-like contracts that are sold as protection against default on loans, but CDS are not ordinary insurance. Insurance companies are regulated by the government, with reserve requirements, statutory limits, and examiners routinely showing up to check the books to make sure the money is there to cover potential claims. CDS are private bets, and the Federal Reserve from...

PAUL B. FARRELLDerivatives the new 'ticking bomb' Buffett and Gross warn: $516 trillion bubble is a disaster waiting to happen By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch Last update: 7:31 p.m. EDT March 10, 2008 ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- "Charlie and I believe Berkshire should be a fortress of financial strength" wrote Warren Buffett. That was five years before the subprime-credit meltdown. "We try to be alert to any sort of mega-catastrophe risk, and that posture may make us unduly appreciative about the burgeoning quantities of long-term derivatives contracts and the massive amount of uncollateralized receivables that are growing alongside....

"Americans just now need what Amity Shlaes has brilliantly supplied, a fresh appraisal of what the New Deal did and did not accomplish...." -George F. Will, Columnist

Confidence among U.S. consumers fell to a five-year low in April as they confronted the grimmest jobs market since autumn 2004, the Conference Board said. The private Conference Board's index of consumer sentiment fell to 62.3 in April, the lowest since March 2003, when the Iraq war was launched, from an upwardly revised 65.9 in March. Despite the fall, the result beat the median forecast of economists polled by Reuters, which projected a reading of 62.0. Reflecting worries about the labor market, the gauge of respondents' feelings that jobs are plentiful slid to 16.6 in April, the lowest since September...

Presidential Personality Cult Deconstructed by: Malcolm A. Kline, April 25, 2008 So many generations have been taught that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ended the Depression that it has become an article of faith for historians in and out of academia and, naturally, their media acolytes. “The life of Franklin Roosevelt has been well-analyzed through the lens of politics and policy,” the editors of U. S. News & World Report write in the April 28/May 5 issue of the magazine. “As the president who lifted the country out of economic despair and stood up to foreign military aggression, FDR offers historians...

NEW HAVEN, Conn.—An influential economist who long predicted the housing market bubble cautioned Tuesday that the slump in the U.S. housing market could cause prices to fall more than they did in the Great Depression and bailouts will be needed so millions don't lose their homes.

The Black Dog, symbolising depression and made famous by Churchill, was the bane of ad executive Matthew Johnstone’s life – until he put it in a book and brought it to heel. Interview by Catherine O’Brien Matthew Johnstone’s meteoric career as a creative director in advertising took him from Sydney to San Francisco and New York, earning him a clutch of awards on his way. He was a man who appeared to have it all – and yet, for many years, he hid a dark secret. He was suffering from clinical depression. “Advertising is about being shiny and up. You...

Housework helps combat anxiety and depression 19 April 2008 From New Scientist Print Edition. FEELING down? You might be able to dust away your distress. Just 20 minutes a week with the vacuum cleaner or mop is enough to help banish those blues, and sport works even better. That's the message from Mark Hamer and his colleagues at University College London, who wanted to find out what benefits arise from different types of physical activity. They examined data from questionnaires filled in by almost 20,000 Scottish people as part of the Scottish Health Surveys, carried out every few years. Some...

...The suggestion behind such talk... is that the slowdown is like the Great Depression of the 1930s. You almost expect Senators Obama and Clinton to repeat the lines from President Roosevelt’s inaugural address of 75 years ago: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” The analogy is absurd.... So far, the Dow has declined about 12% from its record high of last fall. In the Depression, it dropped more than 80%. Unemployment is about 5%. In the Depression it was 25%. Maybe 2% of mortgages are in trouble, and abandoned homes line some parts of Cleveland Heights.......

“I’ve grown up on medication,” my patient Julie told me recently. “I don’t have a sense of who I really am without it.” At 31, she had been on one antidepressant or another nearly continuously since she was 14. There was little question that she had very serious depression and had survived several suicide attempts. In fact, she credited the medication with saving her life. But now she was raising an equally fundamental question: how the drugs might have affected her psychological development and core identity. It was not an issue I had seriously considered before. Most of my patients,...

If government wishes to alleviate, rather than aggravate, a depression, its only valid course is laissez-faire — to leave the economy alone. Only if there is no interference, direct or threatened, with prices, wage rates, and business liquidation will the necessary adjustment proceed with smooth dispatch. Any propping up of shaky positions postpones liquidation and aggravates unsound conditions. Propping up wage rates creates mass unemployment, and bolstering prices perpetuates and creates unsold surpluses. Moreover, a drastic cut in the government budget — both in taxes and expenditures — will of itself speed adjustment by changing social choice toward more saving...

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer Fri Apr 11, 7:50 AM ET WASHINGTON - Americans' confidence in the economy fell to a new low, dragged down by worries about mounting job losses, record-high home foreclosures and zooming energy prices. According to the RBC Cash Index, confidence dropped to a mark of 29.5 in April, down from 33.1 in March. The new reading was the worst since the index began in 2002. It marked the fourth month in a row where confidence has fallen to an all-time low. "Consumers are very pessimistic," said Mark Vitner, economist at Wachovia. "There are not...

U.S. import prices rose by a more-than-expected 2.8 percent in March as petroleum prices jumped 9.1 percent, a Labor Department report showed Friday. U.S. export prices rose 1.5 percent during the month, also more than expected and the largest monthly gain on record, as prices for farm and food products continued to rise. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a 2 percent rise in import prices in March after a 0.2 percent gain in February. They also forecast a 0.5 percent rise in export prices after a previously reported 0.9 percent gain in February, which the Labor Department revised to...

U.S. consumer confidence fell to its lowest in more than a quarter century in early April, diving deeper into recessionary territory on heightened worries over inflation and jobs, a survey showed Friday. The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its preliminary index of confidence fell to 63.2 in April from 69.5 in March. This was well below economists' median expectation of a reading of 69.0, according to a Reuters poll. The April result is the lowest since March 1982's level of 62.0, when the "stagflationary" period of low growth and high inflation was still fresh in the memory of...

WASHINGTON – America is selling its birthright not for a mess of pottage, but for a mess of Chinese junk, and the resulting "unsustainable" trade deficit is leading "to the collapse of the dollar, depression and conversion of the United States to a second-rate power," says a new book written by three generations of a family of economists. "Not only will the United States feel the pain, but other countries will as well," write Raymond, Howard and Jesse Richman in "Trading Away Our Future." "Because other countries are dependent upon the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency and because they...

WASHINGTON - The world economy will slow sharply this year, according to an International Monetary Fund forecast, with the United States sliding into a recession amid housing, credit and financial slumps. The IMF, in a World Economic Outlook released Wednesday, slashed growth projections for the United States — the epicenter of the woes — and the global economy as a whole. Economic growth in the United States is expected to slow to a crawl of just 0.5 percent this year, which would mark the worst pace in 17 years, when the country last suffered through a recession, the IMF said....

Is the U.S. Federal Reserve, as it claims, an agency of the U.S. government charged with maintaining the stability of the US economy? Or is it, as some critics charge, really a privately held consortium of banks whose principal interest is its own self-interest? That argument could go back and forth ad infinitum, but in the final analysis, it's an exercise in irrelevancy. Whether one believes the Fed is a colossal banking swindle or not, it is now an accomplished reality that is so ingrained in our nation that neither political party is willing to endure the pain of undoing...

US employers cut payrolls by a bigger-than-expected 80,000 in March, adding more evidence that a housing downturn and credit crisis have pushed the economy into a recession. It was the third monthly decline in a row and the biggest in five years, according to the Labor Department. Adding to the bleak picture, the department revised the first two months of the year's job losses to a total of 152,000 from a previous estimate of 85,000. The March unemployment rate jumped to 5.1 percent from 4.8 percent, the highest since a matching rate in September 2005. The March job report was...

The number of U.S. workers applying for unemployment benefits soared by 38,000 last week, posting the highest reading since September 2005 and reinforcing fears that the U.S. economy has stalled, government data on Thursday showed. Meanwhile, a separate report showed the US service sector, which makes up 80 percent of U.S. economic activity, contracted less than expected in March, but overall activity for the month still shrank. A Labor Department official said there were no special factors to explain the increase in initial claims to 407,000 in the week ended March 29, but he said seasonal adjustments to the data...

America's web of housing and financial problems has no simple or quick fix, but one vital ingredient of progress appears to be on the rise: hope. A 3.6 percent surge of the Standard & Poor's stock index, as happened Tuesday, is hardly an all-clear signal. But the fact that the rally was led by some of the bank stocks at the center of the storm does point to some lessening of fears that neither markets nor policymakers can prevent an economic slowdown from becoming a deep recession. Among the encouraging signs: •Banks are raising fresh capital. The investment banks UBS...

Cannot be posted due to copyright issues: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/usa-2008-the-great-depression-803095.html

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - His mother suffered dark depressions and tried to dominate his life. His sister and daughter had severe mental problems, his father and wife died young and a beloved uncle committed suicide in his arms. So what did Peter Mark Roget, the creator of Roget's Thesaurus, do to handle all the pain, grief, sorrow, affliction, woe, bitterness, unhappiness and misery in a life that lasted over 90 years?He made lists.The 19th century British scientist made lists of words, creating synonyms for all occasions that ultimately helped make life easier for term paper writers, crossword puzzle lovers and...

NEW YORK - Consumer confidence sank to a five-year low in March as tight credit markets, rising prices and worsening job prospects deepened worries that the economy has fallen into recession. The Conference Board, a business-backed research group, said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index plunged to 64.5 in March from a revised 76.4 in February. The March reading was far below the 73.0 expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson/IFR. Meanwhile, a widely watched index of U.S. home prices fell 11.4 percent in January, its steepest drop since data for the indicator was first collected in 1987. The decline reported...

NEW YORK - A gauge of future economic activity dropped in February for the fifth consecutive month, suggesting that the weakening U.S economy could, indeed, be slipping into recession. The Conference Board said Thursday that its index of leading economic indicators fell 0.3 percent last month to 135.0 after dipping a revised 0.4 percent in January. The February reading was in line with the 0.3 percent decline expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial/IFR. The index is designed to forecast where the nation's economy is headed in the next three to six months. Many economists believe rising gas prices, falling...

Despite the varied theories espoused by many establishment economists, it was none other than the Federal Reserve that caused the Great Depression and the horrific suffering, deprivation and dislocation America and the world experienced in its wake. At least, that's the clearly stated view of current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. The worldwide economic downturn called the Great Depression, which persisted from 1929 until about 1939, was the longest and worst depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world. While originating in the U.S., it ended up causing drastic declines in output, severe unemployment, and acute deflation in virtually every country...

The number of US workers filing initial claims for unemployment aid climbed 22,000 last week, while the overall number on the benefit rolls hit a 3-1/2 year high a week earlier, the government said Thursday. The report suggested a further deterioration in the jobs market, although the department said increases in first-time claims last week and the week before reflected, at least in part, a strike by auto workers. The Labor Department said 378,000 initial claims for jobless benefits were filed in the week ended March 15, up from 356,000 in the prior week. Economists had expected a rise to...

Americans are living beyond their means and Asia is currently financing that. But eventually the Asians/Europeans will stop financing the USA and then the bubble will burst. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n3g5lUgkWk&NR=1

It’s not the economy, stupid. It’s the credit crunch. The size of the Federal Reserve’s expected interest rate cut this afternoon may help stimulate a sluggish economy. But like the several cuts before, it is unlikely to unfreeze the credit markets, especially the mortgage one. And as the Fed continues to use its conventional fire-fighting equipment,there’s a growing sense that extraordinary--and somewhat controversial--measures may be needed. “The Fed by itself will not get us out of it," says John Irons, research director at the Economic Policy Institute. “We need to combine fiscal stimulus with monetary stimulus.” Among the ideas now...

To everyone who called me or emailed me over the weekend saying, "How could this happen? How could Bear Stearns go from $57 to $2 in two days?" I would offer the comment of one astute trader, who said, "When you are levered 30 times and have no access to finance it doesn't take a huge move on $400 billion in assets and $260 billion of debt to wipe out the equity." Two questions dominate the Street this morning: 1) What will Bear Stearns' shareholders--specifically Bear employees--do? The $2 per share deal is subject to shareholder approval, and Bear employees--many...

gauge of manufacturing in New York State tumbled to a record low in March, the New York Federal Reserve said in a report on Monday that will heighten concerns that the economy is mired in recession. The New York Fed's "Empire State" general business conditions index fell to minus 22.23 in March from minus 11.72 in February. Economists polled by Reuters had expected an improvement in March to minus 8.00. The March reading was the weakest since the index was launched in July 2001. The survey of manufacturing plants in the state is one of the earliest monthly guideposts to...

Fed takes boldest action since the Depression to rescue US mortgage industry By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor Last Updated: 12:48am GMT 14/03/2008 The US Federal Reserve has taken the boldest action since the 1930s, accepting $200bn of housing debt as collateral to prevent an implosion of the mortgage finance industry and head off a full-blown economic crisis. The Bank of England, the key European central banks, and the Bank of Canada all joined in a co-ordinated move with a mix of policies to halt the dowward spiral in the credit markets, expanding on the "shock and awe" tactics used...

It is widely reported that women suffer depression at twice the rate of men. Apparently, more women are clinically depressed than ever before. On the assumption that these assessments are true, the question anyone interested in the subject -- which means anyone who cares about any woman -- is, why? As one who regularly talks to women, and about men and women, on my radio show and who has informally counseled women of all ages, I would like to offer some explanations that may run counter to currently acceptable ones, but which should shed light on the subject. Assuming that...