Thursday, March 5, 2009

A loooooooong way to go yet.

If you use the 1929 crash as a metric, we are barely halfway to the worst market in history. Some people think this will be as bad or worse. Who knows. I think that's probably a bit much, but it ain't gonna be pretty.



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2 comments:

  1. John PhippsMarch 6, 2009 at 8:26 AM

    I've read that %10 unemployment is a criteria for depression. We are at 8.1%. Are we close? or are we counting on the 100k-250k federal jobs the President is creating?

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  2. Eric_D_SteinMarch 6, 2009 at 10:42 AM

    I don't know that I've ever seen 10% unemployment as a criterion for depression. The most commonly accepted measurement seems to be four quarters of continuously declining GDP. Even that measure is subjective as four quarters of a 0.1% drop doesn't amount to much of depression.

    This is probably the reason for there being a distinction between a big "D" depression and a little "d" depression. According to all indications I see/read/hear, we are likely going to experience a little "d" depression - something also known as a really bad recession.

    In my next two posts, I will address unemployment (and why the currently popular measurement of unemployment is so poor as a reflector of actual employment utilization). I will also address the concept of Obama as the catalyst for a decline in the markets.

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