It may be the one-year anniversary of an amazing stock market rally, but economists are sounding rather pessimistic these days.

A growing expectation of a double-dip recession is evident in a new poll of financial executives...the poll found more than half of financial executives predicting another downturn, and most expecting jobs recovery to lag into 2011.

The predictions don't end with just this poll. Nouriel Roubini is also warning of a second leg down, and even more disturbing is this report.

This may be the only time in my life I will ever utter these words: "We could learn a lot from Indonesia."

Indonesian police have used tear gas and water canon to disperse about 2,000 anti-government protesters who tried to enter the parliament building in the capital, Jakarta.
The scuffles broke out on Tuesday as members of parliament began a debate over the possible impeachment of the country's vice-president and finance minister.
...
His vice president, Boediono, and finance minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, approved the bailout and opposition leaders have demanded their resignation saying they must be held accountable for losses to the state.

What an amazing concept!

I'm not so arrogant as to believe that I know the perfect solution to our economic problems. Anyone that tells you they know is either a fool or a liar.

However, that doesn't mean we can't discover where we went wrong once you apply a little logic and data to the situation.
For instance, if you realize you have taken a wrong turn, it makes more sense to turn around and go back to the corner where the mistake was made, than it does to drive in a general direction and hope you can find your way home.

When it comes to the economy, its pretty easy to discover when the wrong turn was made - 1972.

A strategist at the Deutsche Bank had something interesting to say last week regarding the economic crisis in southern Europe.

“The problems currently faced by peripheral Europe could be a dress rehearsal for what the U.S. and U.K. may face further down the road,” Jim Reid, a strategist at Deutsche Bank in London, wrote in a research note today.

It seems impossible that what is going on in Greece has anything to do with America. After all, Greece has defaulted on its debts so often over the last two centuries that you could almost set your watch to it. It was always contained in the past because Greece's economy is so small, so why would this time be different this time?

And yet, it isn't contained this time. It is spreading and no one knows how far it might go.

On January 29, 1911, a small band of 18 revolutionaries marched into Mexicali and seized the town, practically without firing a shot. Thus began one of the most unusual and controversial episodes in Mexican history.
These revolutionaries were not the typical warlords that Mexico was used to seeing. These revolutionaries had American volunteers, but not the sort of filibusters that Baja California was already very familiar with. In fact, this revolutionary movement had little in common with anything Mexico had experienced before or since.

These revolutionaries weren't interested in just overthrowing the corrupt and repressive government, they wanted to overthrow society as well.