makes sense as Utah was one of the "prime" subprime targets for Mortgage lenders according to the Wall Street Journal. somewhere between 13-20% of all home loans were subprime in the Wasatch Front. Utah is unfortunately feeling the effects of what the rest of the country has lived through for the past year. it is tempered here in Utah since wages are less here than in other states to begin with while retired folks still are trickling in. they have successfully sought fortunes elsewhere only to spend them here in their last days with their children who come to BYU (as well as the US, UofU, LDS business, Snow college etc) and then stay....

We have entered into the early stages of The Great Depression II.

Watch your pennies.
Scale down your lifestyle.
Learn to get by on less.
Let the other guy max out all his credit cards keeping the economy afloat.

Do this and you may survive.

Watch out! The black helicopters are on their way. You might survive if you put on your tinfoil helmet right now.

Just because the economy is slowing doesn't mean we're headed for a depression. And, even if we were, we know more about the economics behind it now so we could come out of it faster.

I think that we will slow down maybe even to the point of the r-word, but within a quarter after we're in it, we'll be on our way out, similar to 2001.

The last thing we need though is for everyone to be turning into chicken little and running around screaming that the sky is falling.

By the way, learning to get by on less, and not maxing out your credit cardds is always a good move, so why would it make it any different.

I know people like to think that these doom and gloom predictions are based on paranoid "gold bugs" who believe in conspiracy theories, but that's not true. Some of the most well-reasoned, level-headed and rational minds in finance have been calling for a major recession for several months now (just like they did in 2000). This is not just a wild guess to spark fear, but a result of a perfect storm that has been brewing for a long time. You simply can't deny these facts: our government's overspending, a credit bubble which led to a wacky housing and commodities bubble, an enormous trade deficit, outsourcing our manufacturing base overseas, a federal reserve which has been poorly managed, a dollar hitting multi-decade lows, oil near $100/barrel, relying on external governments to finance our own debt, a foreign policy that has turned even some of our own allies against us (UK leaving Iraq), an incompetent president whose own "loyal" cabinet has been jumping ship (Karl Rove, Colin Powell, Alberto Gonzales and DOZENS of others). I'm sure I'm missing several more supporting FACTS of why we're about to hit the skids. Those who deny are the ones with tinfoil hats.

It doesn't take an economic genius to see the similarities of the 1930's and today. Falling dollar, trillions in debt. Nothing manufactured in the U.S. anymore, etc. Today has Depression II written all over it.

Why do you think Dick Cheney jumped all over Greenspan for telling us he thinks we're entering a recession?

As I said, go ahead and max out all your credit cards to personally keep the economy afloat. Wave the flag while you're at it.

I'm going to watch my pennies.

I view the decline in the value of the US dollar a good thing. We have been buying everything from overseas because our dollar has been worth so much elsewhere. This change forces countries importing into the US to charge a higher price to receive the same return lost in the decline of the dollar. In turn, this redirects some of our spending to products manufactured locally, driving jobs and the economy upward out of the recession that WE ARE destined for.

There are too many factors mentioned above that suggest we are in for an economic decline. If we want to see our country continue to thrive economically for the next generation we need to be invested in products produced in America. We are funding the war in Iraq for our troops with our taxes and all of the terrorists every time we fill up our cars. We need to establish independence from foreign countries! Oil and everything else. Pay the premium and seek American made products. Sam Walton would be ashamed to see the Walmart he founded on "buy American" investing in so many other countries.

I agree you should always save your money. In any Economy.