Brazil is also wrestling with inflation, thanks to a QE2 fed commodities bubble and local demand for credit and consumer goods and services driving up prices.

FORBES: China Resource Demand Continues, Despite "Slowdown"

The timing, which combines a local recession and hints of the end of the dot.com bubble with worries about the millennium bug, is scarcely propitious.

ECONOMIST: Purest ray serene? | The

Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, has argued that while America has regional housing hotspots, such as in California and New York, a national bubble is highly unlikely because prices are determined largely by local factors.

ECONOMIST: Global house prices

The challenge we have right now -- part of the challenge we have in terms of growth has to do with the very specific issues of huge cuts in state and local government, and the housing market still recovering from this massive bubble.

WHITEHOUSE: President Obama Speaks at the Associated Press Luncheon