Economy may slow next year (hiring will slow too)

http://www.forbes.com/2005/12/12/business-2006-predictions-sneakpeek_sp06_02_pmaidment_business.html

...of course, hiring is already quite slow.

is buying--that will slow...and building...and poll ratings for the Chimpster, if he is in office then, that is.

and I'm afraid your heads will spin with just how fast the collapse happens.

The ingredients are all there: the staggering public and unsecured private debt loads, the concentration of wealth, the chronic underpayment of labor, the loss of jobs, and the lack of hope that anything will improve. What is likely to happen is a sudden imploding of the consumer market, fueled by unemployment and declining housing prices. We'll see a vicious circle of the lack of demand reducing a need for employment, feeding the lack of demand.

It's happened before, which is why all those New Deal protections were instituted. I have no idea how we'll get out of this one coming up. The gummint sure can't borrow its way out of it.

I could name 100 things that could make this house of cards collapse. I think 2006 will be it.

The only perverse joy I will have is watching Bush stand at the helm of the Titanic, holding the steering wheel, as it starts to sink......

Unfortunately, the rest of us, or most of us anyway, are going to go down with him. I already feel like a steerage passenger locked below decks. *sigh*

tourism here is down, listings for houses are starting to include the word "reduced," people already have cut back on their Christmas purchases (goodness knows, we certainly did...spent maybe $50 total)...feeling of going through the motions-knowing they will make little difference...