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206 comments on DrumBeat: April 11, 2007

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Donal on April 11, 2007 - 4:23pm

Most Americans See Recession in the Next 12 Months (Update1)

By Matthew Benjamin

April 11 (Bloomberg) -- Most Americans expect a recession within a year and disapprove of President George W. Bush's handling of the economy even though the unemployment rate is at a five-year low, a new Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll found.

Six in 10 who were surveyed predicted a recession, similar to the 64 percent who anticipated the economy would contract in a December 2000 poll by the Los Angeles Times three months before the last decline. In the current survey, 71 percent of those earning less than $40,000 said they expect a recession compared with about half for those making more than $100,000.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aSdcDWuOmdiI&refer=h...

The Great Go-Goop War

By Tom Chalkley (In homage, and with apology, to the late Theodore Geisel)

The Tower was covered with Plumbing and Wheels
(More like those on bikes than on automobiles)
And up near the stoop of its uppermost coop
Spun the biggest of all Wheels--the so-called Great Hoop
The Hoop spun the Wheels and the Wheels turned the Hoop
And the whole shebang ran in a grand loop-de-loop. . . .

As long as it didn't run out of Go-Goop

Go-Goop! The thick, sticky underground soup
That pulsed in the plumbing and turned the Great Hoop!
'Twas Go-Goop that kept the big rollers from rusting!
Go-Goop that kept all the up-thrusters thrusting!
Go-Goop! Fulfilling the Us-ers' desire
To always go higher and higher and HIGHER. . . .

. . . As long as there was enough Goop to be found
In the great Go-Goop bubbles that grew underground

Part I is poorly formatted. Part II is also poorly formatted but includes links to page one, page two etc., which recreates the paper page layout. Part III bites the bullet and limits the artwork to the paper page links.

http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=3347

http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=7354

http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=13474

Also, there seems to be a climate change event this weekend:

http://stepitup2007.org/

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Halfin on April 11, 2007 - 5:05pm

The poll shows expectations for a recession, but the betters at Intrade.com don't see it:

http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/contractSearch/searchPageBuilder.jsp?...

Odds are only 17% for a recession before the end of 2007. People who care enough about the issue to put money down are apparently more optimistic than random phone-answerers.

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Donal on April 11, 2007 - 6:37pm

Have these traders ever correctly anticipated a recession?

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Jack on April 12, 2007 - 12:23am

Prediction markets are fairly new and weren't in use before the last US recession. They do seem to have had a good record in predicting other things.

On the other hand, the "majority of US population" had never been shown statistically to be better than flipping a coin. The consensus at TOD has been imminent recession ever since I started following the discussion two years ago.

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“Of all races in an advanced stage of civilization, the American is the least accessible to long views… Always and everywhere in a hurry to get rich, he does not give a thought to remote consequences; he sees only present advantages… He does not remember, he does not feel, he lives in a materialist dream.”

—Moiseide Ostrogorski (1902, 302-303)