America is heading for a recession — and it may be the worst yet

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https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/5814974-middle-class-decline-permanent-crisis/

A recession is coming — not the manicured kind economists dress up in euphemism, but a real one, the kind that redefines the word retroactively. Niall Ferguson has been mapping the terrain: geopolitical shocks, energy disruption, inflation that won’t be reasoned with. History, he notes, does not reward economies caught in that particular combination. It never has.

But this one carries something extra, something structural.

For years, the American economy ran on a dangerous illusion. Markets soared. Asset prices ballooned. Those already inside the system — with capital, with cushions, with connections — accumulated wealth at a pace that would have seemed obscene even a decade ago. Stocks surged. Property values became punchlines told at the expense of renters.

For everyone else — those without a trust fund or a safety net — it has been a slow slide into the abyss. Groceries crept upward, then sprinted. Rent became a monthly reckoning. Credit cards filled the gap, then tightened it. The middle class now occupies an unfamiliar position in American life — more likely to descend the ladder than to climb it.

Recessions do not hit such societies evenly. They amplify what already exists. The wealthy absorb, the rest surrender.

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Bro America is heading for a depression and potential Balkanization

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Been saying it since his first election. I still do not think America survives the orange fascist.

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It would take too long to list all the reasons why this result is increasingly likely.

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i prefer balkanization, so we cant get rid of the gop welfare states once and for all.

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Im Worried about them having nukes. Can’t let toddlers have access or worst sell them off.

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Balkanization doesn’t sound like the worst outcome here. Frankly, it doesn’t even sound like a bad option. The US already have clearly bordered states, this could even happen without bloodshed.

I can’t say anything about how likely it is though. But something’s gotta give if you ask me. Democrats winning the next election isn’t enough.

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Wow that sounds nice. Where do I donate?

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Balkanization could help us get back to some of America quicker. What was it like for the Balkans before?

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It was Yugoslavia. Then war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars

To extremely simplify a complex situation, I’d say some countries are better off now, others worse.

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OP edited

Let’s see here… Billions paid for illegal tariffs, massive increases in food prices, a collapse of international tourism, reduction in all travel due to the refusal to fund TSA, massive DOGE layoffs, further layoffs and closures of multiple government agencies, multiple government shutdowns, fuel price increases we’re just seeing the start of, double digit electricity rate increases, doubling and tripling of healthcare costs for millions of Americans, and international boycotts of American products. That’s just some of the dumpster fire Trump and the Grand Old Pedophiles have provided us. Too bad there’s not a way to include Trump’s misery factor.

We’ll be very lucky if it isn’t a full blown depression.

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massive increases in food prices

I’d like to break this down a little. In my EU country, compared to pre-Covid *memories*, a rough estimate would be an increase of 25%. I think any additional increase due to fuel prices raised by the Iran war hasn’t hit us yet.

Can you relate to this rough percentage? Has the Iran war fully “hit” groceries yet?

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Just a side note, but this article reads like chatgpt

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12 em dashes. You’re right.

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Parallel sentence structure, word triplets, unnecessary emphasis, exagerration. It always grosses me out when I see AI writing.

Common words include delve, surrender, empower, dynamic, amplify, etc.

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And says nothing more than the expanded headline.

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So much

Not X but Y

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As long as we don’t call it a depression we’ll be fine

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But we never got out of the one trump started even before covid…

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It’s already here.

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not the manicured kind economists dress up in euphemism, but a real one

Yeah that’s going to be lost on most people.

The middle class now occupies an unfamiliar position in American life — more likely to descend the ladder than to climb it.

Hmm. Hasn’t this been quoted as the reason for MAGA’s rise?

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Comments in Hacker News@lemmy.bestiver.se

What is the term for a recession inside a depression because I don’t remembered ever leaving the last ones

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Something about “Great Again” I forgot.

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You mean “Depression”, only this one will be deeper and longer then the first, out of which a new “America” will emerge

Once the post fracturing / civil war chaos has subsided

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Good. The collective stupidity of the public, the state of their govt and the consequenses both have on the rest of the world needs to face a reckoning in the hardest way possible. The rest of them, like the rest of the globe, are just fallout.

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Once the dictatorship is instantiated, that “pulls the pins out of” the economy, & it’ll be Depression, not Recession.

Which will force Trump’s Civil War Part2 to happen more-gradually than he’d want.

that is a Good Thing.

( also for the many countries throughout the Americas region that he’ll be waging war on, too )

_ /\ _

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