Recently released data for the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices show that the decline in house prices continued throughout 2008 and there are no indications of a turnaround.

Many firms are seeing a dramatic decline in sales, especially for durable goods. While this pattern is typical for an economic downturn, the data indicates that this time around, the firms are better able to react. They are cutting their inventories faster that they did in the past.

On March 23, the governor of the central bank of Communist China called for the end of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency and for its replacement with an artificial global paper currency to be managed by the International Monetary Fund. However, there has been for centuries a global money and one not easily open to discretionary manipulation by governments: gold.

At a recent press conference President Barack Obama touted the current strength of U.S. dollar, which he said has come about “…because investors consider the United States the strongest economy in the world with the most stable political system in the world.”

In a recent interview on CBS’s 60 minutes, Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, said that he expects the recession to come to an end this year and the recovery to begin next year. While we do not know what data this assertion is based on, AIER’s statistical indicators of business-cycle conditions do not show any clear signs of approaching recovery.

A key element in President Obama’s economic agenda is legislating limits on carbon dioxide emissions to combat the supposed threat of global warming. What have been given far less attention are the costs that will be imposed on the American people from implementing this policy – costs that potentially can be very high.

The rapid deterioration of the job market, which has shed more than 650,000 jobs for each of the past three months, is causing hardship for individuals and alarm among economists. One such economist is Robert Barbera, chief economist for the research and trading firm ITG, who recently described the near-record rates of employment decline as a “violent downward trajectory.”

The chart below displays the ever-rising amount of debt per dollar of Gross Domestic Product and the components that drive it. The debt-to-dollar ratio currently tops $3.50, more than double the ratio of 50 years ago.

It might be hard to believe, but overall in 2008 the gross domestic product (GDP), which measures the value of all goods and services produced in U.S. economy, increased by 1.1 percent. As the chart below shows, an increase in net exports provided most of that growth, as exports increased and imports fell during the year.

No two recessions are alike. One aspect that distinguishes the current downturn from those of the past is a striking transformation of the credit markets.