There should be no doubt that we are in a recession. Here is more confirmation. There is some room for questioning whether it started in the first quarter of 2008 or earlier. The government's distortion of inflation information makes precise determination difficult because it tends to insufficiently deflate GDP numbers.
The question now is the depth and duration. Wall Street and the Feds will deny we are in recession until they think we are well into it and then start calling bottom.
We believe strongly that the worst of this downturn is yet to come, although we might see some relief if oil prices sell off sharply. We don't see what will cause that however. 'Hope' is not a trading plan.
"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863