With the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932 - Telegraph

With the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932 - Telegraph: "'The economy is still in the gravitational pull of the Great Recession,' said Robert Reich, former US labour secretary. 'All the booster rockets for getting us beyond it are failing.'

"Home sales are down. Retail sales are down. Factory orders in May suffered their biggest tumble since March of last year. So what are we doing about it? Less than nothing," he said.

California is tightening faster than Greece. State workers have seen a 14pc fall in earnings this year due to forced furloughs. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is cutting pay for 200,000 state workers to the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to cover his $19bn (£15bn) deficit.

Can Illinois be far behind? The state has a deficit of $12bn and is $5bn in arrears to schools, nursing homes, child care centres, and prisons. "It is getting worse every single day," said state comptroller Daniel Hynes. "We are not paying bills for absolutely essential services. That is obscene."

Roughly a million Americans have dropped out of the jobs market altogether over the past two months. That is the only reason why the headline unemployment rate is not exploding to a post-war high.

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Office Vacancy Rate Keeps Climbing

Vacant office space continued to accumulate in the second quarter, the latest indication that businesses aren't planning significant hiring in the near future.

Office buildings across the U.S. lost 1.8 million square feet of occupied space in the quarter, pushing the national office vacancy rate to 17.4%, the highest level since 1993, according to New York-based research firm Reis Inc.

While the drop in occupied space was much smaller than in previous quarters, analysts said companies' continued reduction of office space meant they still lacked confidence in economic recovery.

"The fate of office properties will depend largely on how well the U.S. economy and labor markets fare amid what appears to be a recovery that comes in fits and starts," said Reis economist Ryan Severino.