Via Refuge comes this little article that points out that almost all mainstream economists, including Keynesian cheerleaders like Paul Krugman, have admitted that we’re in a second Great Depression. But The Great Depression II is going to be worse than the first:

During October 2008, economist Fred Harrison  told the Foreign Press Association in London,””The massive contraction in demand caused by this ‘wealth effect’ will condemn the western economy to a decade-long depression.”

Like some economists who alerted the Clinton and Bush administrations about the approaching economic crisis, Harrison warned future Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the looming financial danger when Brown was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1997. Brown, like Presidents Clinton and Bush, ignored the warning.

“Brown blames America for the global crisis. But every country in the world permitted property speculation, which is at the heart of boom/busts. Brown now defends himself by claiming that he tried to get global agreement on a stabilization plan. But he failed to tell the other governments about the tax reforms that could have prevented the crisis,” Harrison explained in his speech in London.

Two years later, more economists agree with Harrison. Such luminaries as Arthur Laffer and Paul Krugman are two. Although at the opposite ends of the political spectrum, both see dire times ahead for the United States: higher unemployment, a worsening of the credit crisis and housing slump, more loan defaults, more business failures and more foreclosures. Add to this economic witch’s brew the possibility of simultaneous currency deflation and inflation and you have every ingredient necessary for another extended Great Depression.

In fact some economists have begun using the term, Great Depression II.

Harrison concurs and believes that the situation has become so serious that whole nations could fail and something unseen in the West for hundreds of years could appear again: wholesale starvation of peoples in some Western countries.

But wait, if that didn’t make your stomach drop a little how about his section:

Finally, Robin Griffiths [http://www.financial-gurus.co m/gurus/9511/Robin-Griffiths/] devines the future economy from a technical market approach. Griffiths is a strategist at Cazenove Capital who recently shared with viewers of CNBC that “the world has entered significant financial depression.”

According to Griffiths “Equities are for losers and bond markets for winners. Equities are simply for people who like losing money,” Griffiths said.

“A double-dip is inevitable and imminent, as Keynesian stimulus measures have never worked anywhere. We are in the equivalent of a Great Depression following 3 years of credit crisis,” he added.

Griffith has taken a seat at the economic banquet of scarcity, austerity and gloom. The entrees at that table offer very slim pickings indeed: charts depicting a 20-year economic downturn; zero growth; possible additional contraction; massive unemployment, and the imminent collapse of governments globally.

If all that’s not enough, Griffiths points out that the United States’ shrinking M3 money supply now matches the average decline seen from 1929 to 1933.

Yeah, it’s getting bad out there. And even the people who make a living telling you it’s good are spreading the gloom.

What’s going on at J.P. Morgan? They’re going out of business and the government efforts aimed at propping them up is failing largely because of other government efforts to “fix” the economy:

JPMorgan Chase & Co., the second- largest U.S. lender by assets, told traders who bet on commodities for the firm’s account that their unit will be closed as the company begins to shut down all of its proprietary trading, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The bank eventually will end all proprietary trading to comply with new U.S. curbs on investment banks, said the person, who asked not to be identified because JPMorgan’s decision isn’t public. The New York-based bank will shut proprietary trading in fixed-income and equities later, the person said.

Closing the proprietary trading desk for commodities affects fewer than 20 traders, including one in the U.S. and the rest in the U.K., the person said. The unit is based in London, and traders there were given notice on Aug. 27 that their jobs may be in jeopardy as required by U.K. law, according to the person.

Congress passed restrictions on financial firms this year designed to prevent a recurrence of the 2008 credit crisis, which almost caused the banking system to collapse. Proprietary trading involves transactions made on behalf of the bank rather than its customers. The curbs are known as the Volcker rule, named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who campaigned for limits on risk-taking by lenders

Here’s the rub:

JPMorgan’s “principal activities,” which include trading and private equity investing for its own book, generated about $2 billion in revenue in the second quarter, said Christopher Whalen, a Federal Reserve Bank of New York analyst in the 1980s and co-founder of Institutional Risk Analytics in Torrance, California. He said principal activities have generated as much as $10 billion on an annual basis in profits and losses in recent years.

The limits on proprietary trading contained in the Dodd- Frank Act that was signed into law in July by President Barack Obama will cost the company about 10 percent in quarterly revenue, Whalen said.

“This revenue and the risk it carries with it now goes away,” he said. “This will put more pressure on JPM to look for growth outside the U.S. market.”

Since most bank “profits” are in reality debt they hold which may or may not ever be paid back all these little scams they run are how the big banks keep from foreclosing on your house and selling it to the highest bidder. I’m not weeping for JPMorgan, just all the people out there who are going to be waiting for the bankrupt FDIC to give them the money that doesn’t exist when JPMorgan closes.

If you’re doing business with JPMorgan put your house in order, now.