Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Christian's top three signs the US is going into recession


Here are my top three signs that the US might go into a recession sometime soon:

3) A cold housing market:
Housing is directly connected to the idea of wealth. Owning a house determines your status and it directly reflects how much money you have. So the moment the housing market goes sour, people start spending less, borrowing less and the economy starts slowing down. Furthermore, the fact that a burst in the housing market can lead to a recession is backed by historical data; housing booms and busts happened before the great depression and before the horrible Japanese recession at the end of the 1980's.

2) Job Loss:
When an economy starts slowing down, companies struggle and start cutting jobs. While nothing is simple when dealing with the economy, very few signs are a better indicator of the health of the economy than the labour market. The latest news from the US Labour Department is that 125,000 jobs have been lost since February 2007.

1) Consumer Spending:
The American economy, along with a big chunk of the world economy, depend on American people buying stuff. Let this Christmas be a sign of things to come; if sales this Holiday season are low, it will probably be the most serious indicator that the outlook is gloomy.


These are my choices for top three signs the US is going into a recession. Now, some people might speculate on the strength of the recession. There is no way of finding out how deep and long the recession will be. We can only predict how thing may look like in the future. It could be a slump or it could be a deep and lengthy recession. Only time will tell.

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