Trading below cash is pretty unusual Marty, there are debt covenants that restrict the ability of the shareholders to pay a dividend or if it's a regulated financial entity, with capital requirements that amount to the same thing. Otherwise, you have an arbitrage opportunity, which inspite of current conditions, would probably still be exploited. You may be thinking of companies trading at a discount to book value, which does happen, and is one defnition of distress. There is plenty of distress around, not least yours and mine in listening to a none too intelligent intelegencia that has yet to even properly diagnose this problem.

No Marty, it is a recession when someone else is unemployed, a depression when you are. I say bring back Henry George, let this be the age when the McMansion died and people lived within their means. Never forget that America is an enormously prosperous country, and if people chose to can do very, very well with a little less. Reprioritize baby.

Although I have to admit, I have always lived below my means, saved a healthy chunk of my savings, and I have watched a lot of it just evaporate, I sometimes think I would have been better off if I accompanied a buddy of mine on a few of his trips to Rio. At least he has good memories.

Unemployment is probably going to top out around 7% or 8% (we're not there yet) and we're already in a Depression?  Your analysis sounds a little extreme, to say the least.

It's true that we've announced plans to spend $700 billion - but unlike the British, say, who have actually delivered that money to the banks that they nationalized, none of that money has yet been transferred to any of the companies.  So the bailout is moving in much slower motion in the US, which means a lot of the actual benefits of the bailout (assuming that there are any benefits) so far have been 100% psychological and 0% financial.

California's unemployment has already reached those plateaus. We set the trends for fashion, music, and popular culture, and now leading the way to destitution. At least the weather is nice.