You have not been listening to Hillary or Obama then. We are in a depression according to them.

I thought he was banned months ago.

Was he banned? I thought he had just faded away.

That's the rub. The overall economy is ok (not great, but not bad). However fuel has caused many people to shift their spending. I have a Brother and BIL both in the restaurant industry (GMs of Individual restaurants associated with chains). They both report sales down big from last year. A habit of people "buying down" when more money is going to other uses.

But a recession is measured by the total spending, not spending in each sector. So while no one is going to deny that housing is in dire straights, the rest of the economy is picking up the slack.

Now when your company (or my Brothers restaurants) start laying off people, that will show up in the economy and in the indicators and that may yet lead us to a recession. But for now, as anemic as it is, the economy is still growing.

It might not be as bad as the media says it is, but some people have lost their jobs are have been down sized. 

Only two groups of people think that the Bus economy is anything other than an utter disaster, mentally retarded people and billionaires.

Which are YOU?

I know you are being sarcastic for effect, but you probably should have used a different currency. The Dollar has been tanking it against many currencies - but not the Peso. Just check out the latest exchange rate.

And I may have skipped a post of 2, but I do not remember anyone saying it is doing "quite well". I think the issue was not bad, or not in recession. There is a big difference (except to democrats) between "quite well" and "not bad".

This is true. However with a whole year to go who can say what will happen?

Yup, propaganda. It's all a pack of lies you see. So much so that the fact that GM just anounced they're closing 4 more plants, (the only way you'll be able to get a Hummer is if you join the army... and keep your mind out of the gutter) Ford is doing the same, and American Airlines is laying off 6000 employees speaks NOTHING to the current state of the U.S economy. Oh yeah, Dow Chemical anounced a couple weeks ago that they're raising their prices by 20% on pretty much everything they make and sell.. that's not gonna affect the consumer at all!

 

It's people who think any economy is "President X's" economy who are the mentally retarded ones.

The problem is hidden within the fact that the majority of economic growth is only being enjoyed by the wealthiest. So even though GDP didn't show a recession last quarter the reality is that there are a lot of folks in the middle and lower economic classes are getting hammered. Globalization is tough and one should expect that the American standard of living will fall as it happens, but there is a limit to how much and how quickly it should fall.

This article is probably a good starting point that sums up a lot of what is going on and some of the reasons why.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/business/09leonhardt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


It is very difficult to show numbers reflecting the recent quarter since census bureau data is not updated that swiftly but it should be obvious that the trend shown in the
census bureau graph in the article has not changed in the last year.

There are also various links on the web showing income inequality trends but i think some of comments/info found within the following link to be worth pondering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States

My initial statement was in regards to the economy as a whole...That is after all what the post is about. My statement was that "the majority of economic growth is only being enjoyed by the wealthiest".

The article and census data pointed out that the average wage went down during the last economic expansion for the first time since WWII. The fact that average wages actually went down during an economic expansion means that the the working class as a whole did not get anything out of the last business cycle. You cannot compare 100k and 80k wage earners...they are both in the middle class and not even close to the wealthiest for which my statement refers to...The wealthiest are making millions or billions. Income equality as a whole is IN FACT as reported by the Census Bureau now surpassing the lvl that it was at in 1928, which is very troublesome to a lot of economists including Alan Greenspan which i simply name because many people actually know who he is. This is not playing with statistics. This is what the Census Bureau statistics shows and has been the topic of several speeches that have come straight out of the mouths of the Fed Reserve over the past few years.

So the point is there may not be a recession in the usually terms of GDP but if the working class is making less money (or not keeping up with inflation), paying more for necessities such as food and energy, and the unemployment rate is increasing then the working class is experiencing the same pain they feel in a recession because only the wealthiest are experiencing the benefits of any economic growth that is being reported in the GDP.