Thanksgiving rally falls with a thud. After a five-day rally that spurred hopes of a lasting recovery, yesterday's market gave back much of the gains in one of its worst days ever. Monday's trading saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 7.7% to 8,149.09, the S&P 500 -8.9% to 816.21 and Nasdaq -8.95% to 1,398.07. The massive sell-off was spurred on by another round of negative economic news and fears that gains from the week earlier were unsustainable. As stocks fell, investors continued to move to longer-term Treasury bonds. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, already at its lowest level in more than 31 years, fell to 2.719%. The Great Recession. The U.S. economy officially entered a recession in December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), ending a 73-month expansion. (Read the NBER report.) The 1.2M drop in payroll employment this year was the biggest factor in determining the start of the recession, the group said, while job losses are expected to mount as the economy struggles into 2009 (latest cuts I, II). At twelve months, the current contraction is already longer than the last slump that spanned March to November 2001. The current recession could potentially rival the 16-month downturns that ended in March 1975 and November 1982, the longest slumps since 1945. The Great Depression, in comparison, lasted 43 months. Bernanke gets creative. "Even if financial markets improve, economic conditions will probably remain weak for a time," Federal Reserve's Ben Bernanke said. "In particular, household spending likely will continue to be depressed by the declines to date in household wealth, cumulating job losses, weak consumer confidence, and a lack of credit availability." His comments, including calling rate cuts below 1% 'certainly feasible,' helped push long-term yields to their lowest in more than five decades. Bernanke also signaled his willingness to be creative with policy tools as more conventional approaches start to approach their limits, and mentioned