I just paid off the minimum of my Mastercard bill with a cash advance from my Visa card. Is that bad?

The Fed never forecasts a recession. They typical scenario is for a recession to suddenly appear in the newspaper, once the rich have had their opportunity to step out of its harmful way.

Obviously, globalization is hurting most the standards of living of 'small fry' in spoiled countries, like North America, Western Europe,... (At the same time, 'big money' worldwide is getting richer by the hour). What can be done ? Hard protectionism is no viable option anymore, because everybody, somehow, needs everybody else, whether it is to get resources, markets, brains, cheap labor, etc... At the current pace, it might be that eventually, Mother Nature will provide the answer. While the US are sick with their debts (public and private), Western Europeans with their Social security and aging population, etc, etc..., Mother Nature is sick with all the senseless pilferage of its resources. Its reactions might not please anybody, rich or poor, on all continents, and, soon or later, put an end to the myth of eternal economic 'growth'. Happy Thanksgiving !

One thing is for certain, the Indian editorials are based on wishful thinking, hoping that the gravy train they have been riding continues. (And, by the way, that author *removed* posts that disagreed with his "editorial", rather intellectually bankrupt I think.) The con game of "globalization" and the new "service based" economy is blowing up in everyone's faces right now. We either place some rather stringent curbs on outsourcing and cheap guest workers right now or this country will cease to be a world power. Presently, 90% of new engineering and computer programmer hires in this country are H1-B guest workers, primarily from India and China. American engineers and programmers, primarily older experienced workers, are being fired at record levels and replaced by other cheap H1-B and L-1 visa guest workers. Our colleges and university engineering and computer science departments have enrollment of foreign students, primarily (again!) from China and India. This isn't for lack of qualified American students, either. It stems from the fact that those colleges receive three to four times the tuition for those students as opposed to resident students. Those countries find it much cheaper to pay for their students to attend college here over building colleges, hiring teachers, installing the equipment and other infrastructure.

Globalization, as practice by this country, has been a very rapid form of national suicide. We have exported virtually all of our latest technology, permitted corporations to build the latest plants in countries likely to be our future enemies (Intel's latest I.C. wafer fabrication plant is being built in China, Apple latest MacIntosh computers are built in China, the list goes on and on), and have allowed companies to export our most secret defense technologies - cruise missile guidance systems, night vision technologies, our automated border security system, a California aerospace company even helped China with targeting systems and accuracy of their ICBM missiles (WHICH, BY THE WAY, ARE AIMED AT US)! At some point in time, it isn't just business any more, it isn't just about making a buck. Not when the safety and lives of millions of this countries citizens are at stake.

Now, every ordinary voter is aware of this, just as they are of poison toys, defective pharmaceuticals, millions of lost jobs, and all of the other bad deals resulting from globalization. It may even be too late, but it time for our leaders to take note of the common sense AND WISHES of the vast majority of our citizens and get off the global/free trade band wagon. No more lecture from economists or pundits or the Wall Street yuppies, we are way past listening. End it and end it now... because if you do wait, it will certainly be too late.

well, let's see. Have Schwaraman (or whatever) and Kravis and the other New York "Buy-Out-Private-Equity" types finished? Are they off somehwere safe? The international bankers?

All those firms bought out, sucked dry, saddled with debt and thrown back on the market?...(some not even thrown back yet because the market is TANKING DANGEROUSLY again, as of 4 p.m. today...)

Are the market mortagage games that have ruined so many American lives finished yet?
The perps forgiven for their greed?

Are the international markets delighted with the US markets and the plummeting US dollar bringing them down?

So many questions...so few answers except
perhaps rage might be a better bet than optimism when the great unwashed figure out what has happened.

There is a certain history to this.

"'Must I not be the greatest optimist of all?' the Führer said to long-lasting and enthusiastic shouts of 'Heil!'

-- Report in Die Tagung der deutschen Frauenschaft, 1936

"I wish I had a magic wand."

--George W. Bush, simpleton