People will complain no matter what you do, but I guess what I really mean is that seems most fair.

Edit: My only economic knowledge comes from a paper I did on Keynes, so you know...

Does this mean I'll be able to buy cheaper import things from USA?

I mean how can this affect my or anyone else's lives? What are the positive/negatives effects of this so called recession if it happens?

If you think this is not a honest question and are going to post "inri cheetos is a troll LOL" then please ignore this post, pretend it doesn't exist

it means i'm illegally immigrating to your more fortunate country and mugging your dumb ass.

No, it isn't.

When a major world power like the US is having its economy faltering, that is NEVER great news for anybody.

You know the Great Depression? When the USA fell into the slump, it pulled all the other countries into it since back then (and we still do) the USA trades with all these people etc.

We're all interconnected man, and I think it's kind of weird / horrible that there is a possibility of a fuckton of countries getting fucked over a bit by this and possibly another Great Depression-like deal happening and you just go GREAT NEWS CHEAP CDS FUCK YEAH!!

I agree completely.  The US is so intertwined with the world's economy, everyone will be fucked in some way. 

I am actually personally offended that you, kaworu would rejoice at my own misfortune, for the mere prospect of a few cheaper goods.  You do realize such a thing would entail millions of people, possibly my own family, going hungry and/or homeless?

I agree completely.  The US is so intertwined with the world's economy, everyone will be fucked in some way. 

I am actually personally offended that you, kaworu would rejoice at my own misfortune, for the mere prospect of a few cheaper goods.  You do realize such a thing would entail millions of people, possibly my own family, going hungry and/or homeless?

but.... the dvds........

We're not going to go into a Depression. I know, I know, never say never, but it's highly unlikely and considering we still haven't reached the recession stage I wouldn't jump that far in my thinking.
The market has reached a low point and the dollar's tanked, and while I am by no means saying "Everything's fine, la di da di da," I don't think things have sunk far enough that we can say we're in a recession, although the danger's certainly there. Remember, however, that it takes 9 months to realize that a recession has taken place. It's a bit premature to be talking about a recession at this point. Newspapers enjoy taking some facts and running with them, and things are not nearly as bad as the media says they are, although the market is taking something of a hit.
Also realize that a recession doesn't mean the end of the US as we know it or whatever. These things happen, and it's one of the costs of having a free market system. Sometimes the market is up, sometimes it's down. Right now it's down. One of the problems with the media is that when things are up they expect them to keep going up, and when they're down they expect them to keep going down. Consider that in the last six months we've had to deal with:
1) Subprime crisis
2) Falling dollar
3) Rising oil prices (and the corresponding rising gas prices)
4) Large write downs (mostly related to the subprime crisis in ways which I don't feel like explaining)
5) The federal funds rate, the federal discount rate and the discount window have all been dropped by the Federal Reserve.
Among other things.

Personally I think it may last long enough to start hitting some people's pocketbooks, but as far as crippling the economy or whatever, I doubt it. We have foreigners rushing in to buy large slices of failing American businesses, and that's a good sign that the market doesn't have that much further down to go. The main thing that happened which really screwed the market was that through a network of derivatives, indexes, collateralized debt obligations, ABXs, securitization of subprime mortgages and so on and so forth, almost every institutional portfolio had a larger than rational stake in securities tied one way or another to subprime loans. Hopefully the market will right itself in a few months and we can all laugh at the newspapers for doing what they do. Or not. In the end, the truth of the matter is that no one knows what's going to happen until it happens, and until then you have a bunch of economists interpreting the information in every way possible.

"If you laid all economists end to end, they would never reach a conclusion."
-George Bernard Shaw

It would be so hard to build a new infrastructure for a new fuel source (other than say electricity from a plug in your garage or something) and keep it sustained until it can be effectively incorporated in the economy and can stand on its own. amirite? probably not.

It will be difficult, but at the current consumption rate we'll absolutely have to build new or modify the existing infrastructure in something like 50 years, when it is projected that we will officially be out of oil.