Tipping Point: Economy Just About Ready For That Double Dip, And Official Designation as Depression 2.0

Are we diverting ourselves with frivolities, as Anthony Weiner might say?

You know what? Honestly, I can cop to that without guilt.

This is bad. What people think of as bad now? Will not look as bad in nine months.

"My gut feeling is we might see a continuation of the decline (in home prices)," Shiller said.

He added that a 10 to 25 percent slump in real home prices "wouldn't surprise me at all," though he cautioned that was not a forecast.

..

Another uptick in the unemployment rate might also start to point to a double-dip recession, he said.

As a commenter noted (and others have noted, including me), Obama shot all the rounds from the Fiscal Policy gun on noted economists Harry Reid, Ph.D., and Dr. Nancy Pelosi's non-stimulus plan.

So the fiscal shot-in-the-arm is now impossible. At this point spending more would make the economy crash harder, as it all but signals we're Goin' Greek.

On the monetary side... what's left there? Anything? We can't buy our own T-Bills with printed-up dollars forever.

So cometh the Depression 2.0 with no cushion.

If this happens -- and it's my gut hunch that it will -- Obama might not even seek the nomination in 2012, but we will take little comfort in that, because this is going to be an absolute disaster.

Unexpectedly: Jobless claims rise again.

This is a very "unprecedented" sort of "recovery."

Thanks to Jammie Wearing Fool, on Twitter.

posted by Ace at 11:55 AM

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