Heard of the Baltic Dry Index? Analysts warn 70% crash of key world trade barometer to record low shows global economy is grinding to a halt

A key barometer of world trade has crashed to a record low in a worrying sign the global economy is grinding to a halt. --The so-called Baltic Dry Index, which measures the cost of shipping raw materials such as coal, iron ore and grain, has fallen nearly 70 per cent since August to its lowest level since its introduction in 1985.

Read more at the UK Daily Mail
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Is the Market Swoon Signaling Recession?

It's hard not to wonder: Is the stock market telling us something? True, the market's record in forecasting recessions is horrendous. Stocks often move according to whim or fad. But just because the market is wrong much of the time doesn't mean it's wrong all the time. Could last week's turbulent trading be one of the times it's right? By Friday's close, stocks had dropped 6% for the week, a paper loss of $1.5 trillion, says Wilshire Associates. Are we staring at the next recession?

Read more at Real Clear Markets
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

The Worst Five Years Since the Great Depression

In February, 2009, I wrote for the Wall Street Journal an article entitled Reaganomics versus Obamanomics. The article explained that the emerging Obamanomics was pursuing exactly the opposite of every policy of the enormously successful Reaganomics, and predicted that it would produce exactly the opposite results.  Well, the results are in, and under President Obama the American people have now suffered the worst 5 years since the Great Depression, as first explained by Steve McCann of the American Thinker on January 25. McCann writes,  “From 2009 through 2012, the Obama cabal, and their allegiance to statist policies, has been in charge for four years. The global financial crisis took place in the previous year, 2008 [remember the Democrat majority Congress was elected in 2006], and based on the historical pattern of American economic recovery since the depression years, the United States should have been experiencing broad and significant economic and job growth by year three at the latest.”

(Hat tip: KimR) Read more at Forbes Read More......

Tracking Unemployment in America

Updated 07.15.10, The Decline: The Geography of a Recession by LaToya Egwuekwe (OFFICIAL)

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics
LaToya Egwuekwe created this visual as a grad school project at American University. See interview: LaToya Egwuekwe on CNN, December 2009

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Why There Was No Depression

WASHINGTON POST, 10/5/2009 by Robert J. Samuelson (Hat tip: John Detweiler) - How close did we come to the Great Depression 2.0? That question will spawn a cottage industry of books, studies and conferences. But Christina Romer, the head of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, already has an answer: pretty darn close. Her conclusion deserves attention because Romer, in her previous academic career, was a scholar of the Great Depression. Read more at the Washington Post...

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Recession Ends in France, Without Massive and Costly U.S.-Style Stimulus Package

OPEN MARKET.ORG, 8/13/2009 by Hans Bader - France’s conservative President adopted a much smaller $31 billion stimulus package, which, unlike Obama’s, was focused on productive investment, not welfare or social services. $14.5 billion of France’s stimulus package was earmarked for injection “into private sector enterprises.” Billions more were for investments in infrastructure, construction projects, and railways. Read more at Open Markets...

Republicans ask Obama to pay the unspent stimulus money back to the people and reduce the nation's debt. Read More......