What is a "recession" and what is it caused by?

A recession is a serious downturn in the market. The cost of living greatly outweighs income and jobs become more scarce. It's the first step towards a depression which is when the people of a land can no longer afford to live, lose their homes and possessions and live in the streets. It's caused by government. Taxation, outrageous spending, excessive regulation, centralized banking, and recalling money from the marketplace or printing excess money, all contribute. The United States has a $9 trillion debt. Almost all of that is owed to ourselves. We have spent more than we have, borrowing from future generations. Eventually that will reach a limit. Government cannot simply recall money or print more without changing the value of what is in circulation. Loans and government spending, or the lack thereof, is how they can alter the money in circulation. We are part of a global economy. The value of the dollar is compared to currency of the rest of the world. Prices of commodities vary based on speculation in the market. It's all about people trying to get rich playing in the stock market. The bulk of the price of oil today is speculation over future prices and availability. People buy and sell stock in things, orange juice, oil, gold, the US dollar. Buying tends to drive prices up, because interest and demand in that item is seen as increasing. The more you want something the more expensive it gets. And the opposite for selling. When it comes to major assets like a home resale value is important. Population grows, loaning money makes good profits for the bank. As long as money is available to loan to the consumer property values increase. As long as you are willing to pay too much for something, somebody is willing to charge too much. But, if you want that house you will pay the going rate, even if it is too high. Then you reach a limit, prices become so overinflated that there isn't enough buyers, isn't enough money to lend, profits fall, banks stop loaning. People that want to buy can't. People that want to sell can't because there's no buyer. Some sellers might be forced to take a loss on their house. Everything is connected. The price of diesel goes up. Absolutely everything got where it is on a truck, that runs on diesel. So the cost of everything goes up. The cost of running a business also goes up. So salaries stay flat while the cost of living rises. That slows consumer spending. Which then slows manufacturing and retail, which then slows trucking and importing, which all puts people out of work, which means fewer people can afford to live....

first we have to learn to recognize it. Until last month, I had a neighbor on each side of me. Two weeks ago, neighbor on the left bailed out of a $400K mortgage, $3500 property tax bill and a $4000 per year homeowners insurance bill. this weekend, the neighbor on the right has made his escape also. One is renting and the other got into a private mortgage deal with a builder who had empty houses and is holding the mortgage. Both empty houses have mortgages that went into short sale for half of their last sold price. That is what the current recession looks like. We will be in a depression when the empty houses mysteriously burn. There are already pockets of depression. You will not become educated fully here. Seek.

A horrible, lying, traitorous President and his minions. It's true, check your history books.

The basics: Recessions are caused by- Overproduction Too many goods (houses in our case, technically not counted as "goods" in GDP but I'll include them as such for the example) are produced than can be consumed. The excess supply causes factory slowdowns, income cessation and a self-reinforcing downward spiral occurs (people don't work, don't get paid, excess goods and services go unsold leading to more layoffs). Credit Squeeze (what's happening now) Maldistribution of wealth led to too much debt driving the economy until the banks (or foreign lenders as in our case) reach a point where they don't want to lend anymore because there is too much debt.

In macroeconomics, a recession is a decline in a country's gross domestic product (GDP), or negative real economic growth, for two or more successive quarters of a year. In US, the judgment of the business-cycle dating committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research regarding the exact dating of recessions is generally accepted. The NBER has a more general framework for judging recessions: A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. A recession begins just after the economy reaches a peak of activity and ends as the economy reaches its trough. Between trough and peak, the economy is in an expansion. Expansion is the normal state of the economy; most recessions are brief and they have been rare in recent decades. For the past four recessions, the NBER decision has approximately confirmed with the definition involving two consecutive quarters of decline. However the 2000 recession did not involve two consecutive quarters of decline, it was preceded with four quarters of alternating growth and decline. A recession may involve simultaneous declines in coincident measures of overall economic activity such as employment, investment, and corporate profits. Recessions may be associated with falling prices (deflation), or, alternatively, sharply rising prices (inflation) in a process known as stagflation. A severe or long recession is referred to as an economic depression. A devastating breakdown of an economy (essentially, a severe depression, or a hyperinflation, depending on the circumstances) is called economic collapse.