45% chance of recession, UBS says

[appleannie1]

Source: Globe and Mail

UBS Ltd. now attaches a 45-per-cent probability to a U.S. recession next year, which is sharply higher than the 33-per-cent likelihood set last month. That is not the kind of news that investors want to hear, especially one day after North American stock markets and selected foreign markets took a hard hit.

The UBS team of economists added their voice to the chorus who warn that the U.S. economy may be in some trouble. For example, National Bank Financial strategists place even odds on a recession. Even former U.S. Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan has acknowledged the risk of a recession. He has reiterated his view that the odds of a U.S. recession were less than 50-50.

The UBS team assessed the probability of a recession using a model based on four economic factors: the annual rate of non-farm payrolls growth, changes in U.S. housing starts, changes in U.S. home prices and the change in durable goods orders. Three of the four factors deteriorated last month, the team said.

"Recent evidence of tighter lending standards, courtesy of the Fed's senior loan officer survey, reinforces downside risks for the U.S. economy," the team said. "Rising oil prices and lost purchasing power are a further and growing concern."


Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071109.RRECESSION09/TPStory/Business

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It looks like we are in for a rough ride.

[SoCalDem]

1. 100% chance of recession for many people, already n/t

[katty]

2. right!

[greyghost]

18. Damn strait! n/t

[aquart]

3. Oh, I think it's way more than 45%.

[MidwestTransplant]

9. They never want to say more than 50%

They never want to take the chance of being wrong by much. The thing about recessions is that you never know until you are already there.

[greyghost]

17. You bet it is!

It's closer to 100% but don't wait for the MSM to admit that!

[sutz12]

4. And a 20% chance it will get reported in the M$M. nt

[wilt the stilt]

5. Bush strikes again

this guy is the all time fuck up. Everything he touches is a disaster. Good job America in voting this moron in.

[sutz12]

6. Well, it's only right...

He continued his daddy's war in Iraq.

He might as well continue his daddy's recession, too. You know, the one that evil Bill interrupted.

[Gen. Jack D. Ripper]

7. My sister, who is, I'm sorry to say, hard line Republican

Believes that the relative economic success during the years of the Clinton admin. was a direct result of Reagen era economic policies. She also attributes the recent economic down turn to the policies of, yes, Bill Clinton. By her logic, should we experience an economic recovery during the term(s) of our next, likely Democratic president, it will all be because of the forward thinking of none other than George W. Bush. Of course, should our next president be Republican, all bets are off.

[CatholicEdHead]

8. Oh puke

:puke:

Not surprising though.

[daleo]

15. It is a little hard to falsify that kind of hypothesis

She sounds like she is deeply in denial.

[nolabels]

35. Many independent and third parties are in denial too

But many of them so called independents are just long since recovered and or one time disillusioned Republicans to be sure. I have seen enough of those who lost their house and filed bankruptcy here in So Cal. to know those disinfected Republicans don't switch sides too much at all. There are those rare ones, a Republican or ex-republican that will admit to how much of a mistake they have made, otherwise denial is the name of the game. They are just wired that way from what i can tell :shrug:

[davekriss]

25. Amazing

Did you tell her then that the up years during the Reagan administration were a direct result of the sound policies of the Carter administration? And the stagflation of the Carter years were a direct result of the poor policy-making of the Ford administration?

[Alcibiades]

27. All successes are due to Republicans

and all failures are due to Democrats. Always. This from the party of "personal responsibility," except that it turns out that they are never personally responsible for anything.

[olddad56]

29. I'm 50 days awat from retiring and it is scary.

I know that I'm in better shpae than many, but it scary to think about what the impending ecomonic doom could do to my retirement savings and income.

[Skittles]

37. you want I should kick some Ripper Sister ass?

yes INDEED

[sce56]

24. The Sadim touch

It is the opposite of the Midas touch! With the Midas touch, everything you touch turns to gold. With the Sadim touch, you ruin everything you touch.


A Pile of Steaming Shit is all they will leave behind on 1-21-09

[stillcool]

10. my eyes are playing tricks...

on me...I thought your header said 'secession'.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

14. Secession is bad for the economy. n/t

[gratuitous]

11. Even my computer ports are predicting a recession!

Oh wait; UBS, not USB. Never mind.

[superconnected]

12. Oh look!!! They're almost half way to admitting it.

That only took 6 years.

[Thor_MN]

13. It would only make sense, double dip for double dip.

We already had one recession thanks to dumbshit, a bookend recession in his final year of failure to match the one in his initial year of failure.

The push out of recession will likely be a result of people realizing next fall that we are finally going to get rid of the dumbass. That has got to be a boost for the world economy to know that the evil little twit can only cause indigestion at neocon gatherings.

Actually, the thought of this illiterate toad hitting the speech tour is a bit amusing, in a dark way.

[TroubleMan]

16. LOL...we're already in one. They've been fudging the numbers.

What the article predicts is that it will get so bad that they can't fudge the numbers enough to lie about it.

[greyghost]

20. EXACTLY!

They've been cooking the books since the dot com bubble burst.

What is coming is more of a DEPRESSION then recession.

it's going to be impossible to hide.

[SoCalDem]

23. Oooh, did someone say fudge??

sorry :eyes:

[TroubleMan]

34. LOL....great picture.

nt.

[balantz]

19. Recession is

in session!

[greyghost]

21. AMEN n/t

[ozone_man]

22. That means it's a certainty.

Economists always lie by a factor of two, at least. Last year no one even mentioned the R word. They're all lying bubble heads. :)

[whistle]

26. There is a 100% chance that a recession is already under way

...it is simply hidden from most of us because the Federal Reserve under "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke has been dropping tens of billions of dollars into the U.S. financial system hyper-inflating the currency and causing the data to mask the recession. We are already in recession. The real crisis is that we will go further into an economic meltdown and a total collapse of the financial system.

<SNIP>
Ben Bernanke Prepares Money Helicopter as Credit Contraction Begins
Posted by Bill Bonner on Nov 7th, 2007

“New car sales fall as buyers shun debt,” says a Wall Street Journal headline.

Just what we expected…but so long coming we had begun to wonder.

Americans represent nearly 20% of the world’s consumption. And the US economy, too, is more dependent on consumption spending than any economy ever has been. If American consumers don’t spend more, the whole shebang falls apart.

We are witness to something that doesn’t happen very often - like the eruption of a volcano…or the collapse of a bridge - the first stage of a credit contraction. So far, the effects have made the headlines, but it has not yet affected most people. So far…only at the top and the bottom of the credit structure are people getting pinched, squeezed and punished.

At the bottom, of course, are the ordinary homeowners.

“I’ve got a tiny little house on the edge of London,” explained a colleague yesterday. “I’ve got to sell it, because I put a contract in on another place. But it’s been on the market for three months now, and only four people have even looked at it. I’m getting very nervous…

“The problem is that it is a starter home. And the banks don’t want to lend to people who are buying starting homes. They’re the worst credit risks, because they don’t earn much money and don’t have much in assets. Naturally; they’re just starting out. But this is completely different from a couple of years ago, when the banks would lend to anyone…”
<MORE>

http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/bernanke-prepares-helicopter/2007/11/07/

[Alcibiades]

28. The last shoe to drop will be a frenzied sell-off of US equities

Oh, wait, that's already happening.

It's the only thing they care about (other than consumer spending and corporate profits). Once investors figure out that long term prospects for US equities are, if anything, even worse that the short-term problems posed by the credit crisis, the house of cards will tumble.

At which point, Wall Street economists will announce that the good news is that the trade deficit is the lowest in 30 years! The bad news will be a dollar that's lost half its value, but no one cares about that, so long as profits are up (in real terms, of course).

[appleannie1]

30. When they have gotten to the point

where they can no longer deny what is going on and have to half way admit it, we are in big trouble.

[earth mom]

31. The corporate media can't admit the truth because then people will stop spending what little money

they have.

The ONLY upside is that so many of us have been doing without for so long that we may be able to ride it out better than those who don't have a clue and don't know how to survive without all the bling bling.

Yep, it's been a recession for many of us for years. Next up: The Great Depression 2! :yoiks:

[Orsino]

32. Once again, Dems have a chance to clean up a mountain of Republican messes...

...but they are already failing at the job, because they have caught the same damned disease.

I am very much afraid that Democratic control of all three branches of government will only slow our headlong rush off the cliff. We need a Congress full of FDRs, and we need them ten years ago.

[mountainvue]

33. We're already there. n/t

[Skittles]

36. WAY already

:o

[silvershadow]

38. It should have read: 45% chance that people will figure out we

have been in a recession for a LONG time now. Or: 45% chance that everybody already knows we are in a recession. Or: 45% chance that 2 million people will file bankrupcy next year. Or: 45% chance that the recession we have been in will lead to a depression. Or: 45% chance that Wall Street will crash soon.

Sorry, I'm in a mood.