How deep and long will be the 2008 recession?

Several economic pundits are predicting a shallow recession, but I am increasingly finding it hard to believe. I wish I am prove wrong, but I am afraid this recession is going to be the worst our generation has lived through. The memory of the 2001 recession is fresh in our mind, but there are very few similarities. For the first time in recent history, wherever could possible go wrong seems to be doing so. Real estate has been getting overpriced for several years, and pendulum has just begun to swing in the other direction. The pendulum will not just settle at the equilibrium, it will go to the other extreme (read correction that would seem ridiculous) before things return to the new equilibrium. Dollar is weakening which makes the price of imported good go up. Then we have rising inflation in the Asian countries where majority of US export comes from. Net of which is that the goods we are used to buying cheaply are going to get more expensive. With oil already near its historic peak, US consumers will not have enough buying power to avoid a deep recession. One factor will accentuate another, and it will be sometime before the factors of downward spiral of contraction would stabilize. So many of families would have suffered quite a lot before things start getting back on track in few years down the road.