by Joseph Robertson

Created on: July 24, 2008   Last Updated: July 27, 2008

The United States is firmly in the thrall of a banking meltdown, in which the normal structures, the means of measuring performance, and the meaning of debt-holdings, are all out of balance. More than one Wall Street firm or investment bank has written off tens of billions of dollars in uncollectable debt. Financier George Soros has published a book on the Great Credit Crisis. Economic growth figures have been worrying, with some seeing federal figures as "nudged" upward to avoid playing into a downward spiral of apprehension.

We have spent a year now debating if the nation is in a recession, closing in on recession or if recession were unavoidable at any given point, and throughout, we have heard that "two consecutive quarters of negative growth" equals recession. In fact, recession officially hits when the National Bureau of Economic Research finds "a significant decline in economic activity, spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months". A recurring decline in growth, though still growth, can coincide with the conditions of a broad economic recession.

We can ask, for instance, when is a real estate market "unhealthy", and thereby at risk for a sudden or ongoing decline in values? It is commonly argued that not until prices are in decline and foreclosures on the rise is the market in poor shape. But the symptoms of approaching collapse can be seen in the boom time, when values are dramatically inflated and the "bubble" effect becomes apparent: values are too high to continue rising, given the wealth available to finance that desired expansion.

In January 2005, Cafe Sentido (then Sentido.tv) reported on the apparent real estate bubble inflating over the UK economy. The Economist magazine had predicted an imminent fall the summer before. The lesson should be that signs of ill health were visible, and treatment did not come in time. In November 2007, The Hot Spring examined in its Quipu Economic Forum the mounting economic troubles related to real estate inflation and predatory lending'.

The US, over this period, has been relying on three phenomena to sustain the appearance of consistent economic expansion: unsustainable levels of outstanding credit debt, a housing price bubble and massive new military expenditures for the war in Iraq. Huge profits to oil firms, coming from a crisis-driving, stratospheric and ongoing price-rise, helped cover up serious weaknesses in industry and trade, and costs to other businesses reliant on low oil prices, undermined

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>