My friend Whitey turned me on to this Sequioa Capital deck that summarizes why we’re in the dilemma we’re in and why it’s worse than other dilemmas, and why it’s going to take a while to get out of it.

You can see the slideshow here: [1] http://www.slideshare.net/eldon/sequoia-capital-on-startups-and-the-economic-downturn-presentation?type=powerpoint.

The deck highlights what I think is the big issue for this recession, one which the media (not surprisingly) doesn’t seem to be highlighting: e.g. that consumer credit is used up,  consumer mortgage equity withdrawals are now exhausted, and consumers (on average) have no household savings.  So, if our economy depends upon consumer spending–and it does–where is future consumer disposable income going to come from to fuel the next upturn, esp. if oil prices don’t fall below $80 a barrel or so (and it can’t if oil companies are going to fund their deep sea/tar sands drilling, which is very expensive and is only profitable if oil prices stay above $80 a barrel or so)?

If anyone has some good theories on how we dig ourselves out of this hole, I’d love to hear them.