I don't believe the recession is over and i don't think it can be argued it's over because it stops contracting even though it is by definition.

Before this recession is declared over in my view , we'll have to see growth occure without the help of stimulus money , and that may take a few years ,at least in the US .

the economy might grow for the remainder of 2009 and well into 2010 boosted by government spending and subventions , but by the end of fiscal year 2010 when there will be few stimulus money left and when it becomes apparent the economy does'nt have the mean to keep growing on it's own in 2011 then the government will have to think hard about finding ways to boost further it's anemic economy and that's when the real problems will occur 'cause by then " Socialist " China will have largely disengaged from US treasury bond and won't be eager to get back into that snake pit .

Then the US will look around and realise it has to live within it's mean and pay back the huge debt it has accumulated , consequently like all those who find themselves in that kind of situation it will try to find a way out by " diluting " it's debt and that's when the US dollar will go down dramaticaly and gold will surge in similar fashion , not to say that the dollar won't decrease before or that gold won't increase in the meantime , but i believe about 2 years from now the real recession will hick in and the US will be hit hardest because of it's debt and debt servicing .

When this occur around september 2010 when fiscal year 2011 cpmes around the US debt servicing might hit around $500 billion and it will be very hard borrowing money you don't intend to pay back , or at least pay back with printed money worth a fraction of what it's worth now .

The present crisis is not an accident that occured out of the blue over the last 2 years it's the accumulation of a lot of factors , many people have analysed it in several ways accentuating different perspectives and factors all of wich are true in some respects , overall it bears down to the fact that America has lived beyond it's mean for a long time and this is true for many OECD countries as well .

I like to reminisce about some aspects of history now and then to put things in perspective , yet choosing some specific aspect of history is to privilege a particular perspective but what else can we do without writing a whole encyclopedia . So i will here reminisce about the Reagan years when the US accelrated the Arms Race they were in against Russia and started the " Star War " program and made a big fuss about it so as to trap Russia into following them down that road .

Fo 8 consecutive years the US spent $400 billion a year on defense budget !! that's a whole lot of money even by today's standard isn't it ? Well Russia definitely lost that race so much so that by 1990 it's economy for many other reasons as well was in shamble and it's political system ready to crumble wich it did . As for the US they had a larger debt caused by deficits .

It's funy how the supposedly conservative build deficits and grow the debt while the democrats fight it back and pay the debt . Well this time they won't 'cause if they did my 2010-10 story would be happening now with a much larger impact . If the actual governement had not intervene even before it was elected then the supposed pillar of capitalism and democracy would have brought the whole world into the worst depression known to mankind.

The unemployment would probably run in the 20 to 30% and social unrest would have put america and the rest of the world on the brink of disaster and maybe of third world war , and socialism would thearthen to take over america .

As it is socialist principles came to the rescue of incompetence and greed in Wall Street and all other similar streets around the world , wich means that workers will pay for that for a decade or so through inflation higher taxes and lower employment and a lot less access to general wealth .

Happy mother's day while we can still enjoy it at a cheap price !

Tectol