States in Recession 2016By Michael Snyder On Sunday evening, Bloomberg published an article entitled The U.S. States Where Recession Is Already a Reality. The following is an excerpt from that article As economists size up the chances of the first nationwide slump since 2009, pockets of the country are already contracting. Four states Alaska, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming are in a recession, and three others are at risk of prolonged declines, according to indexes of state economic performance tracked by Moodys Analytics. The three additional states that are at risk of prolonged declines are Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma. What all of those seven states have in common is a strong dependence on the energy industry. Last year,67 oil and gas companies in the United States filed for bankruptcy, and approximately 130,000 good paying energy jobs were lost. If the price of oil does not go back up, this could be just the beginning. It is being reported that a whopping 35 percent of all oil and gas companies around the planet are at risk of falling into bankruptcy, and the financial institutions that have been backing these energy companies are getting very nervous. Of course things could shift dramatically for oil and gas companies if World War 3 suddenly erupts in the Middle East, and that could literally happen at any time. But for the moment the outlook for the energy industry continues to be quite dreary. Let us also keep in mind that the problems for the U.S. economy are not limited to the energy industry. According toCNBC, corporate profits in the United States have now declined for three straight quarters, and this is the very first time this has happened since the last recession With 87 percent of the SP 500 reporting, total blended fourth-quarter earnings have shown a decline of 3.6 percent, according to FactSet. Assuming the trend holds up, it will mark the first time profits have fallen for three straight quarters since 2009. But the road ahead doesnt get any easier. FactSet is now projecting that earnings will decline 6.9 percent in the first quarter, a stunning move lower over time considering that in September the expectation was for 4.8 percent growth. As corporate profits fall, layoffs are starting to increase. Just the other day we learned that the number of job cuts in this country shot up 218 percent during the month of January according to Challenger, Gray Christmas. It is starting to look very much like 2008 all over again, and I am convinced that it will soon be much, much harder to find work in America. Here are some more numbers that indicate that the U.S. is heading into a major economic slowdown But the mainstream media continues to try to convince all of us that everything is going to be just fine. Earlier today, CNN ran an article entitled U.S. recession fears fade after market rally, and the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled The U.S. Economy Is in Good Shape that got a tremendous amount of attention. Well, if the U.S. economy is in such great shape, then why are some of the biggest retailers in the entire nation shutting down stores at a frightening pace. The following list of store closures comes from one of my previous articles Perhaps things look fine for the moment in New York City or Washington D.C. or San Francisco or wherever it is that these reporters write their articles. But for ordinary Americans that operate in the real world, the pain of this new economic downturn is already exceedingly apparent. Here is morefrom Bloomberg Dale Oxley doesnt need to hear about rising odds of a U.S. recession to dread the future. For the West Virginia homebuilder, the downturn has already arrived. Everyone is going to have to tighten their belts, said Oxley, the 48-year-old owner of a Charleston-area construction company. The next couple of years are going to be difficult. Unfortunately for hard working Americans like Oxley, what we have seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg. We have entered a long downturn that is ultimately going to be even more painful than the last recession was. And everything changes if Saudi Arabia and Turkey get trigger happy and decide to invade Syria. If that happens, it could very well be the spark that sets off World War 3 and a full-blown meltdown of the global financial system. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here. Too bad those companies didnt save all those billions of dollars they stole off us little people, when they were receiving all those billions of dollars in profit, when the price per gallon was almost 5 dollars a gallon. The sooner they collapse the sooner there will be more Mom and Pop shops. 