August 10, 2011

Yes, Virginia, a Double-Dip Recession is Possible

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Karl Smith says his internal models strongly suggest a double-dip recession, but he just can’t bring himself to believe it:

I look at a lot of fundamentals but at the end of the day the money markets drive my forecasts. The money markets are telling me in every possible way that recession is coming. Liquidity demand is rising, inflation expectations are falling, nominal interests rates are collapsing.

However, like Leamer in 2007, I am hard pressed to see what is left to recess? At the time Leamer doubted a recession because he didn’t think there were enough manufacturing jobs left to lose.

This time, I look at construction and local government and think the same thing. The cyclical employment sectors are already so far down. Are we going to start losing jobs in Health Care and Education at this point?

I don’t know that I can bring myself to believe it either. Then again, in 1931, guess what? It hardly seemed possible, but things got worse! The truth is that as long as insane conservatives continue to drive our national economic policy, a double-dip recession is not only possible, it’s likely. They simply show no signs of stopping their madness, and most of the mainstream press and punditocracy aren’t numerate enough to recognize what’s really going on. We are trapped in a cycle of insanity that’s truly Kafkaesque.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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