Recession Election... 1992 all over again?

Good left-to-right analysis coming from Jared Bernstein and Steve Forbes on the prospects of a recession for the November election (click title for link to video).

On a side note, Amity Shlaes' (another panelist) book "The Forgotten Man" is highly recommended if you want a look at the Great Depression, the US economy and a new way to see the New Deal.

As far as our portfolio is concerned, what would a stimulus package mean? Would the market move? How and how much? Well, it of course depends on what the package looks like and how quickly it is delivered, but if you go back to the last time we had a similar "tax rebate" (2001) to stimulate the economy, you'll notice the stock market kept falling. It wasn't until October 2002 that the market bottomed out and we started the ascent. So I'm not overly optimistic that anything coming out of Congress, except a long-term solution like a corporate tax cut from 35% to 30%, would push the major indicies higher.