Crash Survival Zone

Borrowing and spending beyond ordinary limits largely explains how Americans got into such economic trouble. For decades, businesses and consumers feasted relentlessly, as if gravity, arithmetic and the tyranny of debt had been defanged by financial engineering.

Armed with credit cards and belief in a bountiful future, Americans brought home ceaseless volumes of iPods and cashmere [...]

By Robert J. Samuelson

It’s the end of an era. We know that 2008, much like 1932 or 1980, marks a dividing line for the American economy and society. But what lies on the other side is hazy at best. The great lesson of the past year is how little we understand and can control the [...]

‘The downturn has been catastrophic,’ according to one retail analyst
The fallout from the horrific holiday season for retailers has begun, with the operator of an online toy seller filing for bankruptcy protection and more stores are expected to do the same — meaning more empty storefronts and fewer brands on store shelves.
A rash of store [...]

by Jason Hamlin

I don’t have a crystal ball, but my forecasts have been fairly accurate and quite profitable over the past few years. While 2008 has been a tough year, all signs point to 2009 being much worse. Here is what I see on the horizon for the upcoming year.

The stock market decline will accelerate [...]

Another day, another batch of warnings and data indicating the world will enter 2009 in the throes of a sharp economic slowdown, with governments scrambling to find ways to boost lending and spur growth.

Oil and gold prices dipped on Tuesday, pressured by the gloomy global economic outlook which outweighed tension in the Middle East due [...]

“This archive is an attempt to collect in one place a large number of significant texts in the history of economic thought. I have tried to cast my nets as wide as possible including representative texts of all of the major thinkers and schools of thought; and most of the sub-fields of economics. The archive [...]

There are two realities “out there” now competing for verification among those who think about national affairs and make things happen. The dominant one (let’s call it the Status Quo) is that our problems of finance and economy will self-correct and allow the project of a “consumer” economy to resume in “growth” mode. This view [...]

by Peter Schiff
…It would be irresponsible in the extreme for an individual to forestall a personal recession by taking out newer, bigger loans when the old loans can’t be repaid. However, this is precisely what we are planning on a national level.

I believe these ideas hold sway largely because they promise happy, pain-free solutions. They [...]

It’s dawn at a Los Angeles apartment overlooking the Hollywood Hills. Laura Sweet, an advertising creative director in her early 40s, sits at a computer and begins to surf the Net. She searches intently, unearthing such bizarre treasures for sale as necklaces for trees and tattoo-covered pigs. As usual, she posts them on a shopping [...]

The International Monetary Fund urged governments around the world to make large, but carefully designed stimulus packages to help pull the global economy out of a recession. In a research paper, the IMF said across-the-board tax cuts or bailouts of auto or other troubled industries are likely to waste money. IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard [...]