How soon will the inevitable Recession/Depression hit?

Recessions/Depressions come with "depressing" regularity. Love it or hate it, this is an expected facet of market capitalism: the economy will rise and fall.

My spin? The next one will be a BEAST thanks to the Bush Deficit and the Billion+/day borrowing from the rest of the economic world to float their boat. AND I also think it's just around the corner: the Real Estate bubble is already leaking (the wife has gone from "we'll list the house in June" to " GAWD WE MAY HAVE WAITED TOO LONG!!") and the auto industry (employer of almost 20% of the population, directly and indirectly) is starting to stall big time.

I figure less than a year: maybe by Christmas.

And SOONER, rather than later, to be Rumsfeldian about it....

The US economy, in its present form, is completely unsustainable. It's been patched together with paper clips, duct tape, chewing gum and spackle ever since the abolishment of Bretton Woods by Nixon back in the early 1970's. Ever since then, we have shifted from a production-based economy to a speculative economy.

Our rampant consumerism is fueled by our hogging of global investment capital through the IMF and World Bank.

Americans will see their standards of living drop by around 20-25% overall. This WON'T be something that we bounce back from. It will rather be a correction to the way things SHOULD be. During the 1930's depression the US economy was operating way, way below its productive capacity. That is not the case now.

so far. I think we had a huge head start after WWII, since most of Europe and Japan were bombed like crazy and they had to rebuild while we were able to almost pick up where we left off. That gave us a huge advantage after the war, and I think it lasted at least 20+ years - maybe 50+ years.

What WWII provided was a stimulus to get US industry operating somewhere close to full capacity. That engine was kept humming through the post-war years because the US produced over one half of the industrial output of the entire WORLD during this time. All of Europe and Japan were in ruins during those years, and had to be completely rebuilt.

It was only a matter of time until the former industrial powers of the world regained their prior status as industrial powers. The dream couldn't go on forever, and the US saw its industrial output becoming a lesser share of the world output. Plus, the country was literally hemmoraging money from the war in Vietnam. Nixon's solution was to abolish the Bretton-Woods system in international currency exchange, established at the end of WWII, which had tied all currencies to a gold standard. Now, they were left to float freely, without any real foundation.

This led to the rise in speculative finance through the late 1970's, and especially through the 1980's. While this also helped stave off the inevitable, it also made the inevitable fall that much harder when it would come.

The Clinton years, IMHO, somewhat slowed the inevitable downward slide's approach, but didn't really offer any significant reform that could have reversed the course. Bush's policies have revved things back up to full throttle again. It's almost like being trapped in the backseat of a car flying toward a cliff at 110 mph and not being able to turn the steering wheel. Sure, the road is smooth now and the ride may seem fun, but if you happen to see that cliff approaching, you're also filled with a sense of dread.

reversing the downward trend. He could only do so much in 8 years and with Rethugs harrassing him all the time. The 1960's also offered a strong economy too. Reagan started with whole mess we're in now.

... three years. Maybe two, if Bush starts another war requiring more off-book deficit spending. *sigh*

The bottom will fall out of the stock market and panic will set it. It's all down hill after that.

Remember, you heard it here first.

that seems to be how the cycles go. If anything prevents it, it's the massive government stimulus caused by Bush's deficits. But so much of that is going overseas that even that might not be enough.

Well, we never really left the last recession, but you know what massive deficit spending and near 0% interest rates can do to forestall the inevitable. The more we inflate, the more debts that accumulate, the more violent the debt purging part of the cycle will be.

This is an opportunity for Democrats, if they can recognize it as it unfolds and take political advantage. In other words, make it stick to Bush and the neocons. Even if they aren't 100% responsible, they have had control of government for long enough to accept full repsonsibility.