LOGO: Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines. A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.   Exclusive Truthdig Merchandise: Mr. Fish T-shirts and Signed Prints
November 22, 2009
Log in / Register

 Choose a size
Text Size

Most Read

Intelligentsia Against Intelligence

Throw the Money Changers Out of the Temple

Obama's Job Approval Slips Below 50 Percent

The Afghanistan Speech Obama Should Give (but Won't)

Claire Wasserman on Europe's Islamic Immigrants

Most Comments
Most Emailed

Reports
Enough G-2 Talk Already
Despite Subsidies, Class Sizes Rise in California Schools

Ear to the Ground

A/V Booth

Arts & Culture
Freedom’s Fight: Part II

Digs
Financial Meltdown 101
Vetting Sarah Palin

Truthdig Bazaar
Cinema by the Bay

Cinema by the Bay

By Sheerly Avni
$26.37

more items

 
Ear to the Ground

IMF Sees an Even Deeper Recession

Email this item Email    Print this item Print   
Posted on Apr 22, 2009
IMF Recession
imf.org

Estimates show the global financial sector losing $4 trillion, a drop that the IMF believes to be at the center of the crisis.

A shrinking global economy has many at the International Monetary Fund worried, as economists project that 2009 will see a decline of 1.3 percent in world economic output—the first global recession since World War II.

The BBC:

The global economy is set to decline by 1.3% in 2009, in the first global recession since World War II, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says.

In January, the IMF had predicted world output would increase by 0.5% in 2009.

But other major economies are predicted to shrink even more, with Germany declining by 5.6%, Japan by 6.2%, and Italy by 4.4% in 2009.

The prospects for the advanced economies are not much brighter in 2010, with an overall forecast of zero growth.

Read more

More Below the Ad

Advertisement


Elsewhere: .

Comments

Are you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig.

By KDelphi, April 25 at 5:46 pm #

I dont mean to be lazy, but, Folktruther nailed it again. How long ago was this suggested? HOw could we be any worse off now than what we are? Well, as long as the “middle class” is still reasonably comfortable we will not get any action. I hate that it has to come to genuine suffering of the majority , before things will change and , by then, it is too late..but, as long as Dems keep throwing the poor and working classes under the bus, they will get, eventually, what they deserve. Too bad so many will have to die first.

Bubble economics. Treasonous Capitalism.

Report this

By Folktruther, April 23 at 5:47 pm #

An historic decline of the West.  While this is happening in the West, China’s ‘recession’ has bottomed out at +6%, their stimulus isworking.  The difference is that China government owns the banks while in the US and the West, the banks own the government.  The state can therefore plan a market economy not only for China, but for its surrounding allied countries.

the solution in the US is as simple as it is politically impossible: nationalize the banks.  But Americans have been taught by the learned and mass media and other truth organs owned or in other ways controlled by the ruling class that government ownership of the banks is Despotism.  And since the ruling class owns the Dem-gop parties as well, the only alternative is for the population to transform their ideological worldview of Free Enterprise and unite against their corrupt and obsolete power struture.

But such a historic transformation takes historical time, and the near term future is not bright.

Report this

By GW=MCHammered, April 23 at 11:14 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Anyone wanna guess what ‘their’ next ‘crisis’ will be? Water shortage? Disease? Another terror attack? All of the prior? Of course ‘they’ will ‘save’ us ... all at our expense.

Report this

By thoughtwright, April 23 at 4:24 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Some economic activity produces misery,
and some happiness, leisure, contentment.

GDP and trade numbers are a mix of both.

Please, you economics reporters, split the
numbers, because misery-making and
happiness-making are separate accounts, and
do not cancel each other, except that in a
particular individual happiness may make
misery bearable.

Report the GDP components that promote
happiness in separate accounts from those
that promote misery.

Then we will understand better what needs
to be done, and what should cease.

To bemoan GDP losses due to disappearance
of war expenses during universal peace
would be inhumane and stupid.

To bemoan GDP losses due to people’s
valuing unpaid time more than more
possessions would be stupid.

Please, journalists, think, and don’t
be party to the stupidity.

Report this

By samosamo, April 22 at 6:09 pm #

Of course the imf claims the loss. They, being one of the masters of the global financial disaster, wouldn’t want is any other way because they are the ones making money on all that money they pass out just like the federal reserve does, interest charged for every dollar used to loan, bailout and stimulate economies and all that interest goes right into the ‘elite’s’ pockets.

Amazing how these financial terrorists just keep getting away with this ponzi scheme of grand larceny and the people just let them keep doing it. All it would take is to rise up against the imf, world bank, central banks and all those money laundrying centers and shut them down. This then should be considered those ‘elites’, that .0001% of the world population, who are gathering all the money and riches unto themselves.

Report this

By G.Anderson, April 22 at 4:21 pm #

Everything thats happened since February is just a psy op.

We’re kept hoping that we’ll be saved by the stimulus package..

But after this one is gone there will be another…
and after that another, to keep us living in the future..

But what about today?

Hope is the narcotic of the moment.

Report this

By scared, April 22 at 3:33 pm #

And I bet they’ll re-adjust that figure again at the end of the next quarter.

The future looks grim.  No bubbles left to prop up the economy this time I guess, huh?  I survived a 400 person layoff yesterday.  I’m not confident about the next one.

Report this

Add Your Comment

Posts by unregistered readers are moderated. Posts by members
are published immediately. Why wait? Register today!







Number of characters remaining: 4000

Notify you when others comment on this article?


Are you a human?
Retype the word you see here.


Please read and abide by our comment policy.
By submitting this comment, you agree to this site's terms and conditions.

 
 

 
Join the Liberal Blog Advertising Network
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
Copyright © 2009 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.