Monday, June 28, 2010

Could We Be Entering a Third Depression?

At the recent G20 Summit meeting in Toronto, governments pledged to halve their deficits by 2013. According to the Huffington Post, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman believes this move will plunge us into a “third depression.” Krugman states:
“We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost -- to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs -- will nonetheless be immense.”
Krugman believes that our skyrocketing number of long-term unemployed workers combined with government budget slashing will lead us into a long-term depression that may not be as severe as the Great Depression, could last years. And Krugman isn’t alone. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the Federal Reserve members are preparing for a potential “double-dip” recession in the US, as is Market Watch’s in-house economist.

What do you think? Are we on the verge of recovery, or on the verge of a long-term depression? Tell me your impressions via Facebook or @ronideutch/Twitter.

Read the Full article here.