Don't even joke mate- the news is getting scary again! Hopefully it's just journalistic scaremongering rather than anything more sinister. You only need to skim these forums to get a sense of what happened after the last recession
Well I hold a significant amount of stock on the stock exchange so I guarantee you I know 1st hand what is going on. And it is not a laughing matter. The strange thing about 2011 is that usually every 3rd year after a recovery (after a collapse. i.e 2008) is usually a good year... historically at least. And I'm afraid things could easily get worse before they get better. In fact they definitely will. The economy works like a wave. Things MUST collapse before they go up. But having said that, things WILL get better. It's a question of when. 2012 could be messy - at the moment it's too hard to tell.
The EU needs to get this Greek/ Portuguese/ Italian/ Spanish mess sorted, and the US needs to show us some better growth figures too... unfortunately not looking great right now. But it doesn't take long for the tide to turn.