The above mantra from the movie “Network” is but one symptom of the increasing social, emotional, physical and political cost of the worldwide recession which is now entering its second year. For those of you that have been following our commentaries over the past three years you know that we have written extensively on the financial and economic trends and developments that have led to the current severe worldwide recession and our views of the reactions of the U.S. and foreign governments to this recession. However, the length and severity of this recession are causing in our opinion additional high, and we believe, long lasting social, physical and political costs that will represent significant changes in worldwide economic growth and social and political attitudes, particularly in the U.S., going forward.

As we have been stating for some time, this recession was initially caused by the bursting of the housing bubble here in the U.S. which then spread to the financial system and finally to the business, non-residential real estate and state and local government sectors. The U.S. recession has spread worldwide as our economy contracted and credit losses expanded to overseas banking and export dependent economies. Indeed the negative impacts of recessions overseas are more severe on foreign economies than here in the U.S. As a result, we are seeing the following trends and developments.

Social unrest in Russia, Eastern and Western Europe as rising unemployment and cutbacks in domestic government spending programs and consumer incomes. Of particular note are the street demonstrations and strikes in Western Europe where we have not seen this type of reaction to economic distress since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. It speaks volumes about the level of angst and anger among foreign workers and consumers.

This social unrest is creating political change. Governments in Latvia and Iceland have already collapsed and there is increasing pressure on the governments in Ireland, ... Log in to view full article.