Few if any commentators understand what is happening in the US today. The reason for this is that the vast majority of investment professionals believe that what they’ve experienced in their lifetimes is the norm.

Put another way, an entire generation of investment professionals has:

1)    Never witnessed a secular economic change

2)    Never witnessed or invested during a bear market in bonds

3)    Hasn’t studied enough history to know about either of these items

I firmly believe that what’s happening in the US today is not a cyclical recession, but a one in 100 year, secular economic shift.

See for yourself. Here’s duration of unemployment. Official recessions are marked with gray columns. While the chart only goes back to 1967 I want to note that we are in fact at an all-time high with your average unemployed person needing more than 20 weeks to find work (or simply falling off the statistics).

Here’s the labor participation rate with recessions again market by gray columns:

Another way to look at this chart is to say that since the Tech Crash, a smaller and smaller percentage of the US population has been working. Today, the same percentage of the US population is working as in 1980.

Here’s industrial production. I want to point out that during EVERY recovery since 1919 industrial production has quickly topped its former peak. Not this time. Despite spending TRILLIONS in stimulus industrial production is well below the pre-Crisis highs.

Again, what’s happening in the US is NOT a garden-variety cyclical recession. It is a STRUCTURAL SECULAR DEPRESSION. And the reason is that we are currently witnessing the collapse of the greatest debt bubble of all time.

Going into this recession, total US credit market debt was at its highest level of all time: over 350% of GDP. In comparison, during Roosevelt’s New Deal during the Great Depression we hit only of 300% total GDP.

Debt is absolutely endemic in our financial system. The average non-financial corporation in the US is sitting on a debt to equity ratio of 105%. Bank leverage, while relatively low compared to Europe (13 to 1 vs. 26 to 1), is still high enough that an 8% drop in asset prices wipes out ALL capital.

Folks, we’re not out of the woods yet… not by a long shot. The same problems plaguing Europe today are coming to the US’s shores. And when they do, everyone will realize what I’ve been saying since 2009: that 2008 was the warm up… the REAL Crisis is when the US defaults and we face systemic collapse.

On that note, if you’re looking for specific ideas to profit from this mess, my Surviving a Crisis Four Times Worse Than 2008 report can show you how to turn the unfolding disaster into a time of gains and profits for any investor.

Within its nine pages I explain precisely how the Second Round of the Crisis will unfold, where it will hit hardest, and the best means of profiting from it (the very investments my clients used to make triple digit returns in 2008).

Best of all, this report is 100% FREE. To pick up your copy today simply go to: http://www.gainspainscapital.com and click on the OUR FREE REPORTS tab.

Good Investing!

Graham Summers

PS. We also feature four other reports ALL devoted to helping you protect yourself, your portfolio, and your loved ones from the Second Round of the Great Crisis. Whether it’s my proprietary Crash Indicator which has caught every crash in the last 25 years or the best most profitable strategy for individual investors looking to profit from the upcoming US Debt Default, my reports covers it.

And ALL of this is available for FREE under the OUR FREE REPORTS tab at: http://www.gainspainscapital.com

-- Posted Tuesday, 8 November 2011 | Digg This Article