What If We're in a Depression But Don't Know It?

http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2016/09/what-if-were-in-depression-but-dont.html

"Policymakers Have Been Calling A 'Depression' A 'Recovery' For Nearly A Decade"

This is why protests, violence, and social unrest will accelerate.  There has been no "recovery", despite the narrative of the powers-in-charge.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-23/policymakers-have-been-calling-depression-recovery-nearly-decade

For Caterpillar The Depression Has Never Been Worse... But It Has A Cunning Plan How To Deal With It

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-19/caterpillar-depression-has-never-been-worse-it-has-cunning-plan-how-deal-it

The Keynesian Depression

http://guggenheimpartners.com/Perspectives/Media/The-Keynesian-Depression

The Punchline In His Own Words: Bernanke Advocates Blowing Asset Bubbles As The Antidote To Depression

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/punchline-his-own-words-bernanke-advocates-blowing-asset-bubbles-antidote-depression

US Needs To Generate 262,500 Jobs Monthly To Return To Pre-Depression Employment By End Of Obama Second Term

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/us-needs-generate-262500-jobs-monthly-return-pre-depression-employment-end-obama-second-term

Business Booms and Depressions Since 1775

Expand the chart, and you'll see we're overdue for an economic winter cycle. 

http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/publications/bb/issue/5069/download/85250/1943chart_busibooms.pdf

More Americans Believe The Country Is In A Depression Than Growing

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/more-americans-think-america-depression-growing

And this was Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's proclamation that the economy was recovering back in 2010:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/opinion/03geithner.html?_r=1

But then again, the government declared the recession ended in June 2009.

When do the pitchforks emerge?

Jim Rickards - BoE Governor is Right, We Are in a Depression

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/1/27_Jim_Rickards_-_BoE_Governor_is_Right%2C_We_Are_in_a_Depression.html

Housing Market Slips Into Depression Territory

http://www.cnbc.com/id/41019790

Home values have fallen 26 percent since their peak in June 2006, worse than the 25.9-percent decline seen during the Depression years between 1928 and 1933, Zillow reported.

November marked the 53^rd consecutive month (4 ½ years) that home values have fallen.

What’s worse, it’s not over yet: Home values are expected to continue to slide as inventories pile up, and likely won't recover until the job market improves.

iDepression 2.0

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-idepression-20

A little reality about the job situation in this country is in order. The unemployment rate reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and parroted by the mainstream media is currently 9.6%. Once you stop counting people who have given up looking for jobs and “left the workforce”, discouraged workers, marginally attached workers and workers forced to work part-time, you magically get a 9.6% rate. Using the method of measuring unemployment used during the Great Depression and reproduced by www.shadowstats.com, the real unemployment rate is a depression-like 22.5%. The peak unemployment rate during the Great Depression was 25%. There is no doubt that we are in the midst of 2nd Great Depression, but where are the bread lines and the lines of unemployed winding around the corner? No need. This is the electronic Great Depression – iDepression 2.0. Your 99 weeks of unemployment and food stamps are direct deposited into your bank account so that you don’t have to leave the comfort of your McMansion that you haven’t made a mortgage payment on in the last 14 months. There were no credit cards in 1933. Without a job or a house, you needed to move to where there might be a job. Hence the mass migration from the Midwest to California – ala The Grapes of Wrath. Today, a neighbor in a matching McMansion down the street, with the perfectly manicured lawn, could be unemployed for three years and no one would ever know. They could sustain themselves on unemployment payments, food stamps, and credit cards. Welcome to the iDepression 2.0.

The mechanisms of a currency war (21st century trade war)

Now that we know WHY countries want to debase their currencies, let's explore HOW they are doing it. If a sovereign central bank wants to devalue the local currency, they simply buy USDollars. Buying USDollars has the net effect of selling the local currency, driving down the value of that local currency. The intervention mechanisms are becoming more complex, as central banks are using derivatives in the foreign currency markets. But all things being equal, they buy the USDollar and short their local currency. The Fed and US Treasury are more than willing to print more USDollars to accommodate Congress, the Administration, and US government and consumer spending. The global financial system is built on a glut of USDollars--and the debt resulting from the creation of said dollars. Of course, this puts a higher burden on US taxpayers.

The world is awash with USDollars--that is the lighter fluid. Money velocity--the so-called multiplier effect of money exchanging hands, is the match. Once lit, prices rise as multiple dollars chase a finite supply of goods and services. This causes price inflation, something the Fed believes is under their control, as they attempt to fight a spiraling deflationary environment. The problem is that inflation can turn into hyperinflation overnight. A controlled fire can morph into an out of control, ranging combustion.

A depression is terrible, but hyperinflation is much worse, as it causes a complete loss of confidence in the currency.

The recession of 1920 and how Warren Harding ended it

Bernanke, Geithner, Frank, and Obama, please take note.

http://amellon.wordpress.com/category/recession-of-1920/

Why we're in a depression

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/what-depression-anyway-and-why-we-continue-be-it

Ron Paul: Depression is coming

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/ron-paulobamadepression-taxes/2010/08/30/id/368750

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, says depression looms for the economy and that failure to extend the Bush tax cuts for everyone would hasten the process.

“It will be devastating if the (tax) breaks aren’t renewed,” the 2008 presidential candidate told Newsmax.TV.

Even without expiration of the tax cuts, the economy is headed for depression, he predicts. “That will just make it worse much faster.”

Paul is introducing a bill next year for the nation’s gold reserves to be audited.

“It’s common sense for the country to know what it owns,” he said. The last audit was in the 1970s, and a lot of central banks have sold or loaned gold since then.

“Hopefully someday there will be a gold currency, or they will return gold to the people because it was taken from them in the 1930s at a very low rate,” Paul said.

“We should know what we own. Why should anybody oppose us counting what’s in the bank, in case we make use of it, just because too many questions are raised about what central banks have done in the last 10 to 15 years?”

And that’s the main reason the Fed successfully opposed his proposal this year for an audit of the central bank, Paul says. “They didn’t want us —as a people or Congress — to know what deals they made with other central banks.”

Transparency is the main issue for the Fed, says Paul.

An elite depression

This is one of the best articles I've read on the economic and financial ramifications of an incumbent power elite.

http://www.thedailybell.com/1320/Is-it-an-Elite-Depression.html

Rosenberg: this is a depression

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbATZcck0Vg&feature=player_embedded

Watch how his depressing message is cut off by the CNBC anchor at the end of the video.

Existing home sales plunge

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/existing-home-sales-plunge-272-record-drop-expectations-134

Again, what recovery? We are almost 3 years into this recession/depression. Recessions, on average, last 18 months.

Feels like 1932

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/7871421/With-the-US-trapped-in-depression-this-really-is-starting-to-feel-like-1932.html

More Unthinkables

The proverbial "other shoe" is dropping. Citigroup shares dipped below $2 and Bank of America shares are headed toward $3 amongst fears of bank nationalization, which completely wipes out shareholders (instead of just essentially wiping out shareholders). As financials are leading indicators, this does not bode well for the broader averages. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped and closed below November 20, 2008 lows, which means that support level now serves as resistance. The charts are basically breaking down toward their 2002 levels, as the technicals are deteriorating faster than you can say "Ponzi".

Gold touched above $1000 an ounce for the 2nd time in history since last spring, before retreating. Gold mining shares have essentially doubled since their November lows and still surging. I've been expecting pullbacks, looking for opportunities to add to my current positions, but the market just hasn't allowed me to. I'll just hold on and see if we penetrate the $1030 all-time high. If that occurs, then all bets are off and we could see a buying mania which would signal an opportunity to take some profits off the table. Long-term, the chart for gold still looks bullish, but locking in some profits just seems prudent to me, considering last year's stunning rise and subsequent collapse in gold.

Eastern European defaults are a huge concern, which would cascade toward western European banks with heavy exposure to the emerging countries in the Baltics. And with European banks even more leveraged than their US counterparts, this is analogous to the US subprime mortgage crisis--only worse and much larger in scope.

Unemployment is soaring with no end in sight, corporate earnings eroding, and consumer confidence shattered, markets are braced for the next shock, with the realization that this is not your garden-variety recession--this is an outright worldwide Depression, with no country spared.

The Dow/Gold ratio is at 7.5 and dropping, and that ratio usually dips below 5 and all the way to 2 at extreme recessionary lows. Hypothetically, gold at $1200 an ounce, and the Dow Jones Industrials at 6000 would yield a DJIA/gold ratio of 5. This is another indicator which has scary implications going forward.

The Volatility Index is climbing once again above 50, so hold on to your hat.