When the hopeful news for the 2009 economy is that an unknown hedge fund may be buying a distressed bank (IndyMac), you know we're getting desperate. That news offers at least a glint of hope that there may be a resolution in sight to the banking mess, says Seeking Alpha. (Hey, it's better than giant snow globes acting like firestarting magnifying glasses.) Alas, Stephen King (chief economist at HSBC, not the master of horror) is less upbeat about 2009 with his gory vision that the entire global economy will shrink for the first time since 1947. Washington's Institute for International Finance has similar thoughts of a "globally synchronized recession," according to Real Time Economics. "That probably means that even countries which have had extraordinary growth like China could move into deep recession," says 24/7 Wall St. "The slowdown in global demand will mean more job cuts, factory closures and bankruptcies, as well as budget-stretching rescue plans and government bailouts running into hundreds of billions of dollars," says LiveMint.com. Now there are two worldviews, blogs James Howard Kunstler at Energy Bulletin: one view says this "rough patch" will play out and technology will rescue us, and one says "it will be necessary to make radically new arrangements for daily life and rather soon."

"As if things weren't bad enough...starts a Wall Street Journal story today, a Russian professor is predicting the dissolution of the United States in 2009. Igor Panarin figures "economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis...wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede...social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow." You know --stuff like that. Different states will go to Canada, Mexico, Russia, etc. "Sarah Palin will not only be able to see Russia from her house, she will actually be Russian," says The E&P Pub. Adds Attytood: "This makes an enormous amount of sense. Because I've long suspected that Canada secretly has a plan to capture the economic goldmine that is North Dakota."

But cheer up: being cheery is the human way, says Live Science: "In the face of a sliding economy, lost jobs, vanishing retirement and checkbooks in the red, everyone just keeps on going. In fact, we keep on smiling....it helps us stay alive, and sane." And Contrarian Profits, for one, isn't giving up on the USA: Yes, "pain will precede the promise," the blog says, but "we have the potential to end up with a new, fair, transparent and judiciously regulated environment where capital formation can again spread its wings and the U.S. economy can fly."