Albert Edwards from Societe Generale says the Atlantic region is one accident away from outright deflation - that 9th Circle of Hell, "abandon all hope, ye who enter" . Such an accident may be coming. The ECRI leading indicator for the US economy has fallen at the most precipitous rate for half a century, dropping to a 45-week low. The latest reading is -5.70, the level it reached in late-2007 just as Wall Street began to roll over and then crash. Neither the Fed nor the US Treasury were then aware that the US economy was already in recession. The official growth models were wildly wrong.