The US recession (sorry, Mr President: ‘downturn’) is just beginning, according to JPMorgan Chase boss James Dimon.

According to a report in The Huffington Post blog, Dimon said at a conference in New York: “Even if the capital markets crisis resolves, it does not mean that this country will not go into a bad recession. The recession just started.”

“We don’t know if it’s going to be mild or severe,” he continued. “We’re thinking there’s a third of a chance that it’s going to be pretty bad … closer to the 1982 recession than the very mild recessions we had in 2001 and 1990.”

While the US economy limps on, China continues to grow at breakneck speed, says Bill Bonner in The Daily Reckoning.

“Every detail about China a superlative…bigger, faster, higher, more…more…more. Things are happening so fast that in just 10 years, China will be the world’s biggest economy. We don’t have to tell you what that means, dear reader. Give a guy some money and it’s not long before he thinks he can tell other people what to do and how to live. The United States became the world’s largest economy around 1900. By 1918, Woodrow Wilson was headed to France with his ‘14 Points.’”