We clicked over to Zero Hedge last night for a brief check-in on the decline and fall of civilization. We found these two beauts.

As with many reports in this genre, the logic is weakened by the dismissiveness and arrogance of the rhetoric, but the reports make some excellent points. They're also a fun contrast to endless celebrations of the v-shaped recovery crowd.

To briefly summarize:

Our collective debt is still vastly higher than it was in the early 1930s and in Japan in the 1990s.

Consumers account for 70% of economic growth, and they're broke

The banks are still insolvent, but they're now allowed to lie about it

Recovering from crises like this takes years

Collapse In The Wake of the Fed's Wall Street Bubble?, by Bob Chapman

Collapse in the Wake of the Fed's Wall Street Bubble

The New Bull Market Fallacy, by Naufal Sanaullah at Shadow Capitalism.

The New Bull Market Fallacy

See Zero Hedge's take on these here >

And if you like doom and gloom, definitely don't miss these:

Bob Prechter, Elliott Wave:

* Oil Is Going To $4 A Barrel

* The Depression Has Barely Begun

* "Quite Sure" Market Will Crash And Hit New Low



Nassim Nicholas Taleb:



You Fools Don't Get It: We're Doomed!