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Rising US recession risk poses the real threat to Europe
The Telegraph ^ | 5/20/2012 | Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Posted on 05/20/2012 4:43:23 PM PDT by bruinbirdman

The US economy has slowed to stall speed. A few lonely forecasters fear that America has already fallen back into recession, replicating the terrible double-dip of 1937.


Obama's intended success?

The Philly Fed’s manufacturing index dropped suddenly to minus 5.8 in May. The US Conference Board’s index of leading indicators fell in April. Job creation has slipped from 250,000/month to nearer 130,000 in March and April.

The Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) says post-War personal income growth in the US has never been this weak for three months in a row without triggering a recession. It has happened ten out of ten times.

It is this fresh menace - combined with China’s failure to calibrate its heralded soft-landing - that poses the real danger to southern Europe’s arc of depression over the next year. Greece is just a poignant detail.

America’s official data has not picked up any inflection point yet. We may be repeating the summer of 2008 when Washington mistakenly reported brisk growth and Fed rhetoric turned hawkish, setting off Fannie/Freddie, Lehman, AIG disasters. We now know that the figures were wildly wrong. The economy was already in slump.

Fed chair Bernanke is vigilant this time. Last week’s Fed minutes hinted at fresh stimulus if “the economic recovery lost momentum”. The Fed noted “sizeable risks” as $1 trillion (£633bn) of fiscal cuts kick in automatically at the end of the year.

Bernanke has to bide his time of course. He faces a Congress that confuses zero interest rates with loose money, a common mistake. Greece may give him the excuse he needs.

Ethan Harris from Bank of America says there is a strange nonchalance over America’s coming austerity or “fiscal cliff” as Mr Bernanke calls it. “If the US and European crises interact,

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: depression; eucrisis; recession

1 posted on 05/20/2012 4:43:30 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
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To: bruinbirdman
The market based assumption is that as long as Obama is in office nothing can be done, but with the prospect of Romney moving into the White House, there's no improvement in confidence either.

So, stagnancy reasserts itself.

2 posted on 05/20/2012 4:54:32 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: bruinbirdman
The market based assumption is that as long as Obama is in office nothing can be done, but with the prospect of Romney moving into the White House, there's no improvement in confidence either.

So, stagnancy reasserts itself.

3 posted on 05/20/2012 4:54:45 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: bruinbirdman

Milton Friedman was correct and prophetic. Chronic deficit pending squanders capital and leads to poverty. Financial gimmickery can never restore the capital. Those nations that deficit spend will eventually come to bankruptcy and experience real misery. Too bad Milton Friedman’ writings were not in the curriculum at most European universities. More trajicallly they are being largely ignored in his native country.


4 posted on 05/20/2012 5:01:54 PM PDT by allendale
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To: bruinbirdman

The US isn’t falling back into recession, we never got out of it.

Any story to the effect that the recession was over was just another Obama lie.


5 posted on 05/20/2012 5:02:49 PM PDT by Venturer
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To: bruinbirdman

If the Europeans would watch our state run “news media” they’d find out that the economy here is on its biggest roll since the Stone Age. It’s boomin’! Just ask any commie lib! They’ll tell ya!


6 posted on 05/20/2012 5:08:24 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Dumb, dependent and Democrat is no way to go through life. - Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)
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To: muawiyah
"So, stagnancy reasserts itself. "

Nope, I'm still minimizing my external economic activity until the w0n is gone.

7 posted on 05/20/2012 5:18:54 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Paladin2
The markets should have already discounted the possibility of Obama being re-elected ~ right?

Bwahahahahahha

Or, let me put it this way, the markets may be overjoyed to see Obama go but they are not exactly overjoyed to see a Romney in charge.

BTW, anyone here know how the pigeon drop game is played? Or, better yet, do you understand BUNCO?

The basic idea is this, a bunch of people scheme together to trick someone into giving them his valuables or his money. They walk off with the property or the money leaving him holding a bag of worthless newspaper clippings.

Although this might be played on anybody at any time, it works best when you find a pigeon who is a little bit desperate for MORE MONEY. So, you tell him "Hey we found a whole lot of money..... but we need to split it with you since you saw it first"

That gains his confidence feeling that "wow these guys are stupid".

Next thing you know they own your factory and you have a big debt to pay off to a bank ~ and oh, they got all the cash from that loan too.

So, Bunco and Pigeon Drop ~ played by the people known as Romany, Romanies, Romanis, Roma or Roms.

8 posted on 05/20/2012 5:32:24 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: bruinbirdman

I knew it would get back to “George Bush’s fault”.


9 posted on 05/20/2012 5:38:23 PM PDT by moovova (OBAMA: The first US President to come out of the closet.)
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To: FlingWingFlyer

Big financial collapse .....> Weak Economic Growth ———> Bigger financial collapse

Why must history always repeat itself when liberals are in control?


10 posted on 05/20/2012 5:56:56 PM PDT by Reagan233
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To: muawiyah

Sounds similar to the email I receive daily from Africa. Did you know the daughter of a warlord who was killed needs help getting 9 mil out of a bank ? Yeah. Just what I need. Some warlord money.


11 posted on 05/20/2012 7:35:55 PM PDT by justa-hairyape
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To: justa-hairyape
Yup, same story.

Just a few months ago we had a spirited discussion here regarding the difference between Bunco and Capitalism.

I didn't participate and just waited until it was over to see how many people actually thought Bunco was the very essence of Capitalism ~

12 posted on 05/21/2012 2:05:24 AM PDT by muawiyah
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