According to The State’s Jim DuPlessis, declining manufacturing + stalling retail sales + a deteriorating construction market = a really depressing economic outlook for the next year.

The woes of the housing market are spreading into finance, witnessed by Bank of America’s announcement in November that it will close a 105-employee mortgage bundling office in Florence in early January.

Retail sales and housing recovered swiftly from the last recession, in 2001, and helped generate jobs that more than replaced the number that manufacturing continued to lose.

But help at the checkout counter and the construction site will be hard to find next year, said Doug Woodward, USC’s economic research director.

“We really believe we’re at a tipping point,” said Woodward, who along with his staff will present an annual forecast for the state’s economy at a conference Monday in Columbia. “There are going to be layoffs in sectors we haven’t seen in a while. It’s spreading from construction into finance.” [JIM DuPLESSIS - The State]

I don’t really know much about economics other than what Jeffrey Sachs tells me, but I’m inclined to agree with DuPlessis. When you lose jobs, your spending habits are out of control (see: S.C. Legislature) and your failsafe isn’t there, it’s pretty logical that the bottom is going to fall out.

Regardless, I have sold all of my stocks, stored up on non-perishable items and withdrawn all of my money from the bank and buried it in my backyard in preparation for the Great Palmetto State Depression.