The Average Recession

How long does the average recession last?

I've been giving this some thought lately and I think I've come up with an analogy.

How much damage does the average hurricane do?

That's a good start but there are even better questions to ask.

1. How much financial damage does the average hurricane do?
2. How much financial damage does the average hurricane that hits land do?
3. How much financial damage does the average hurricane that hits populated land do?
4. How much financial damage does the average hurricane that hits overpopulated land do?
5. How much financial damage does the average Category 5 hurricane that hits overpopulated land do?
6. How much financial damage does the average Category 5 hurricane that hits overpopulated land do when that hurricane was created from an asteroid hitting one of our planet's oceans?
7. How much financial damage does the average Category 5 hurricane that hits New York City do when that hurricane was created from a 500 mile wide asteroid hitting the Atlantic Ocean?
8. How much financial damage does the average Category 5 hurricane that hits New York City do when that hurricane was created from a 500 mile wide asteroid hitting the Atlantic Ocean during a real estate boom?

I'm thinking that it generally pays to be as specific as possible when looking for answers. So, using that theory, let's see if we can ask a more specific question about our current recession.

How long does the average recession last when it is created by popping tens of trillions of dollars worth of ponzi debt bubbles (credit, housing, stock market) in an environment where we have a huge unsustainable trade deficit built on the idea that vast numbers of oil consuming foreigners can do our jobs and send us cheap goods as long as other foreigners supply us with vast amounts of cheap oil and both sets of foreigners are willing to be paid with vast amounts of our paper IOUs even though they see that our solution to end the recession relies on generating even more vast amounts of additional IOUs?

Whew! I need to take a breath. That question nearly wore me out.

Here's the simple answer. Who knows! We've never been here before, not even during the Great Depression.

You know how much I like sarcasm in this blog. I feel like I'm really letting you down with this post though. I only managed to work a little bit in this time (by creating the mother of all run-on sentences, which is a cheap theatrical trick and not the kind of honest hard working sarcasm I generally strive to offer).

Further, as pessimistic as my recession question seems, I have to remind myself that I have constantly been too optimistic on this blog. Things continue to be worse than I expected. I merely thought it would turn VERY bad. For example, although I moved to inflation neutral quite a few months ago, the deflationary forces have overwhelmed any stagflationary outcome so far. Wealth is being destroyed far faster than it is being printed and/or borrowed.