President Obama might be vowing a US recovery in his Thanksgiving address but don't expect it too soon. Probably not this term if the latest set of economic stats are anything to go by.

Figures released by the US courts showing that bankruptcies are up 34.5% to 1,402,816 over a space of 12 months. For the 12-month period ending September 30, 2009, business filings totaled 58,721. That's up a whopping 52%.

Add to that data showing banks are tightening up even more and lending even less money. Lending has declined 3% in the third quarter, the biggest drop since the US Government started tracking this sort of data 25 years ago. Despite the banks receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer funded bailout money, they are not willing to repay the favor. But then, the banks aren't lending because they feel the chances of them losing money on bad loans have never been greater, with business bankruptcies and unemployment on the rise.

These figures are immense. Far too large for the world's biggest economy to make any sort of recovery in the immediate term. And if the recovery comes, it will be weak. It won't feel like a recovery.