'Vicious Cycle' of New Recession Has Started

The crippled US economy is already tumbling into another recession, according to one economic institute. The Economic Cycle Research Institute reports on its website that dozens of leading indexes indicate another "full-blown recession" is occurring, not a "soft landing." Why heed ECRI’s warning? "Perhaps because, as the Economist has noted, we’ve correctly called three recessions without any false alarms in-between."

ECRI is hardly surprised that the latest expansion of a couple of years is already over. Growth "has been stair-stepping down in successive economic expansions" since the 1970s, ECRI says. Now, in a new recession, the economy will slip into a cycle of lower sales, lower production, and declining employment and income—which will make sales fall even further. "If you think this is a bad economy, you haven’t seen anything yet." (See why George Soros also says the "double-dip" is here.)