By Chris Isidore, senior writer September 20, 2010: 12:03 PM ET


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Great Recession ended in June 2009, according to the body charged with dating when economic downturns begin and end. But the news comes amid rising fears of a double-dip recession.

The National Bureau of Economic Research, an independent group of economists, released a statement Monday saying economic data now clearly points to the economy turning higher last summer.

That makes the 18-month recession that started in December 2007 the longest and deepest downturn for the U.S. economy since the Great Depression.

The NBER acknowledged the risk of double-dip recession in its statement, but said "The committee decided that any future downturn of the economy would be a new recession and not a continuation of the recession that began in December 2007. The basis for this decision was the length and strength of the recovery to date."

The committee that made the finding said it "did not conclude that economic conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity." Rather, it decided that June was when the economy hit bottom, and that it has been slowly but steadily growing since then.

"Economic activity is typically below normal in the early stages of an expansion, and it sometimes remains so well into the expansion," said the NBER.

Most economists have been saying for months that the recession likely ended in the summer of 2009.

"No, we are not still in a recession as some people have asserted," said Barry Ritholtz, CEO of Fusion IQ, a research firm based in New York. "No, it's not a depression. The wheel has turned, the trough is more than a year behind us. This is not a robust recovery, but the economy is now expanding, not contracting."

Ritholtz places the risk of a double-dip recession in the 20%-30% range. Some other economists have put the risk as high as 40%. One of those is Sung Won Sohn, economics professor at Cal State University Channel Islands. He said the NBER determination that the recession ended more than a year ago does nothing to reduce his fears of another recession looming around the corner.

"The primary reason is we don't have any cylinder powering the economy," he said. "It's hard to imagine where the strength comes from."

The NBER typically takes a long time to declare the start and end of recessions, waiting for all the economic data to be revised and finalized and making sure that any change in direction of the economy is long-lasting. It didn't declare that the recession started in December of 2007 until a year later.

In addition to looking at gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation's economic health, the NBER also weighs employment, industrial production, income and sales for determining when the economy changes direction.

Many of those measures have weakened in recent months, even if they are still showing modest growth. That weakening is a key factor raising fears of a double dip.

Still, double-dip recessions are relatively rare. The last one occurred in the United States when the 1980 recession was followed by another in 1981-82. The NBER waited until July 1981 to declare the end of the 1980 recession, which turned out to be the same month that it eventually determined the next recession had begun.


Resource: CNN

Hello there, we meet again. Financial Freedomino is preparing one new series to be shared together. As for the Part 1 of Preparing For Next Recession, some ideas will be listed.



Economic Recession is one of the biggest problem and mistakes face by us nowadays. Since most of us are implementing and practicing the Capitalist Model Based Economy, so we will be facing this problems later.

What is the Capitalist Model Based Economy?
Simple words, Capitalist Model Based Economy is to make sure profits keep on returning and increasing. Expecting a very high Return Of Investment (ROI). In this concept, profits will come first while other rest are all left behind.

Once the recession hit the world, we can see and heard one by one company collapse. One of the consequences is many of workers will lost their job. Without paycheck, will they survive? or CAN YOU SURVIVE IF YOU ARE ONE OF THEM?


Yes! Only if you are preparing for it!


From the latest economy recession, it can be included that:

• The time scale for these few years of the economy recession is around 10 Years. Therefore, you will have around 8 Years to be prepared for next recession after recovering from the latest recession.

• The latest trend is, even a country can collapsed and bankrupt. The best example is Greece. Imagine if a country bankrupt, how many major impacts can rise after that?

• Not only small business and industries get the catastrophic, but giant, established company are also facing the problem. One of the example is, Sony. During the latest recession (2008-2010), the news reported that they have to shutdown a few investment done in other countries or even reducing the operation cost. Who say the giant can't fall?

Therefore, we will always to be prepared. The good investor will always be prepared.