Last Friday's announcement that the Mrs Fields Famous Brands chain of cookie shops has gone broke is another sign of the deep problems now confronting the US economy. It has has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after blaming "aggressive competition" in its franchising business and a decline in customer traffic at shopping malls. It also blamed its problems on better-positioned competitors and inflation, sending up the prices of flour, sugar and wheat. Mrs Fields is the seventh US retail chain to file for bankruptcy protection this year.

While we are on the subject of inflation, spare a thought for the chocolate kings at Hershey's. The company is in serious trouble with The Wall Street Journal reporting that it only managed to increase sales by raising its prices 13 per cent. But it wasn't able to generate great profits because it was forced to increase its marketing spend to try and keep customers annoyed with the price increases. A strategy like that puts the company on a road to nowhere.

All this is in keeping with the latest survey of chief financial officers and senior-level executive CPAs saying that the US is in recession and the outlook remains negative. Worse still, the number of finance executives thinking that way is on the increase. According to the survey, 62 percent of CPA respondents said they were pessimistic or very pessimistic about the economic outlook for the US. That's up from 57 percent who held negative expectations in the second quarter. And 57 per cent said they believe the U.S. economy has already entered a recession.