It's a bit like saying you have just realised that you can't drive to work because your car was smashed up a few weeks ago. That's my reaction to the National Bureau of Economic Research report that the US has been in recession for 12 months. "The committee identified December 2007 as the peak month, after determining that the subsequent decline in economic activity was large enough to qualify as a recession. Payroll employment, the number of filled jobs in the economy based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' large survey of employers, reached a peak in December 2007 and has declined in every month since then. An alternative measure of employment, measured by the BLS's household survey, reached a peak in November 2007, declined early in 2008, expanded temporarily in April to a level below its November 2007 peak, and has declined in every month since April 2008."

While hardly surprising, the news sent the Dow plunging a massive 9% and wiping out all the gains during Thanksgiving Week.

The US economy is in a state of cardiac arrest and the impact is being felt right around the world. The data is looking bad, very bad. Bloomberg reports that manufacturing is contracting right around the world. Economists now estimate industrial production will fall to its lowest level since 1980.

Irwin Kellner from MarketWatch feels it wont be as bad as 109-91 but who knows?

As Ben Bernanke told the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, that's anyone's guess. "The likely duration of the financial turmoil is difficult to judge, and thus the uncertainty surrounding the economic outlook is unusually large. But even if the functioning of financial markets continues to improve, economic conditions will probably remain weak for a time. In particular, household spending likely will continue to be depressed by the declines to date in household wealth, cumulating job losses, weak consumer confidence, and a lack of credit availability."