After dropping like a stone for the past three or four years, existing home prices in the United States went up a little teeny tiny bit in the second quarter of 2009. HOORAY WE CAN REFINANCE OUR WAY TO HAPPINESS AGAIN! So, the sales price of American houses went up by 2.9% between April Fools Day and the end of June, but they also dropped by 15% as compared to a year earlier. Never mind, we’re still doomed. [Washington Post]

Some math wizards down in Texas have come to an incredible conclusion: What with 6.5 million lost jobs since this Hellcession began, there’s less rush-hour traffic. HEY THAT ALMOST MAKES A CRAZY KIND OF SENSE. But the news isn’t all good. MORE »

It’s official for Sad America: As the economy shrunk another 6.1% in the first quarter of 2009, the total GDP loss for this recession (so far!) is 3.3%, making this the worst recession since the legendary “Elvis Downtown” of 1957-58. And there’s only one economic collapse larger than our current horror: the Great Depression of 1929-c.1940. We sure hope Obama’s 100th Fireside Chat tonight is a doozy! [Bloomberg]

Not that we should put much faith in what Professional Auditors say, but a terrifying new report predicts that a fourth of America’s remaining publicly-traded companies may be gone by the end of the year. This means 3,600 shareholder-owned businesses are in “going concern” territory, or in serious danger of failure in the next 12 months — and this is just based on first-quarter reports, which are already up 9% vs. 2008 “going concern” filings, so, uhm. MORE »

Jesus christ, this whole country is drowning in its own blood. We take a day off — the Sabbath — and there are another half-dozen gruesome murders or murder-suicides. Cops and the families of the killers seem to be particularly common targets. We don’t recall Homicidal Frenzy as being a normal part of, say, the recessions of 1981-82, 1991-92 or 2001. MORE »

It’s another new new unemployment record, America! The happy month of March saw 669,000 U.S. jobs vanish, bringing the jobless rate up to 8.5% — the highest since the end of Reagan’s Lil’ Depression at the end of 1982. About 5 million jobs have now been lost in this current Great Recession. And stocks are on fire — the Dow’s over 8,000 again! MORE »

These supposed Christians made a mockery of their faith in October, when they cavorted about this golden idol of mammon, the Molten Calf of Wall Street, because obviously the best way to head off a global recession is to sing God Bless America to a statue of an animal. What has happened since these idolaters demanded that Jesus fix the stock markets? MORE »

Ever get the feeling that your country has become one of those places where this kind of thing is always making it to the nightly news in rich countries? [Political IQ]

The Czech government collapsed, which means current prime minister — and current president of the European Union, whoops! — Mirek Topolanek is now powerless and will soon be jobless, but that doesn’t mean he can’t deliver an apocalyptically Slavic-ly gloomy sermon against the United States and its terrible bailout plan, which is just like the American response to the previous Great Depression, which sort of led to … Hitler? Yes, Hitler. Depression + Czech troubles = Hitler. Works every time. MORE »

Somebody give Jim Cramer his golden dildo back, and let Larry Kramer out of the shit-cage where he sleeps, because the Stock Markets had a great big rally! Everything is good again! The U.S. markets were all up up up about 7% all the way around, which means the Dow is right back to, uhm, mid-February levels. Yes We Can. MORE »

Bob Dylan’s got a new record coming out next month, and you should be terrified. Yes, the dude continues to make great music, but his past two studio albums were also Harbingers of Doom. Love and Theft was about America in flames, and then under water, and it was recorded in 2001 and released on September 11 of that rotten year. His next record, Modern Times, was released in the autumn of 2006 — it was named after a Depression-era Charlie Chaplin movie, as the stock market hit new heights and the housing bubble was just beginning to pop, and it was filled with grim songs of working people losing ground. MORE »