As we will see, whether you call it the Great Recession or the Great Financial Crisis, what we are in is not a typical business cycle recession. It is a balance sheet recession. It is the end of the debt supercycle that started more than 60 years ago. The recovery time in much of the developed world is going to be measured not in months but in year

Globally, during this cycle:

-China has had strong industrial production, but weak consumer spending.

-Europe has been relatively weak both in industrial production and consumer spending.

-The United States has been strong in consumer spending, but relatively weak in industrial production.

The U.S. housing and banking system was the epicenter of the global financial crisis in 2008, and the Fed used a few rounds of quantitative easing (i.e. expanding the monetary base to buy U.S. government debt and other securities) in the aftermath, which kept its currency relatively weak due to plentiful supply.

When the United States finished its t