"Recession"
 

it's sad but it's true, the recession is here and it's not going to get better anytime soon.. many small businesses are going out of business already, I see it all over NY/NJ areas

But is that *truly* from a "recession"?

By the time the "R" word is even beginning to be mentioned in the media, it's already here.

from a manufacturer's position..yea..and how. Our sales are down..big time.

Do you know the what the work "recession" means? It doesn't sound like it.

"A period of general economic decline; specifically, a decline in GDP for two or more consecutive quarters."

DECLINE is the key work here. We have a SLOWING economy not a DECLINING economy.

Yep, we haven't posted a single quarter decline in GDP yet. No recession.

People have become so accustomed to a good economy, they think anything less than windfall profits is a recession.

Bottom line: The good ol' american consumer is pretty much tapped out. Credit card debt now at an all time high...

normally a recession is good for me..people fix old cars, not buy new ones. but it has been really tight last 2 qtrs

That actually makes sense this time around. The last few years, automakers were offering insane discounts and low financing. Most people are either driving fairly new cars or slightly used ones. When the surplus from these discounts has run its course, you should be in good shape again.

How do you know we are not currently in a declining economy? Are you somehow able to know what this current quarter's numbers are going to be?

We may well be. No one knows right now.

Even so, we would just be in the first quarter of GDP contraction--still not a recession.

No, we'd be in the first half of a recession.

Yes, I'm the Chairman of the Fed.

The people screaming "recession" are the same ones that think that if they usually get a 5% raise but this year they got only a 3% raise that it is a 2% cut - no it's not - you still got a 3% raise
If there really is a recession, i just choose not to participate

Listening to Bernake this morning gives me no encouragement. Things are not good. New housing down 25%. Markets falling. All of this leads one to conclude that if the publis perceives that things are not good they will react accordingly and pull in their pursestrings.

Many will disagree, but this is a case where perception can turn into reality.

LOL. I agree with Moneyguy. Bernake looked very shaken today.

Also, homeowner's equity is at an all-time record low. How that is possible after this mother of a housing boom, I really don't know.

URY914, pump and dump. Repeat after me. Pump and dump.

Heard from a large bank, individuals' revolving lines of credit up significantly. Revolvers are personal lines of credit. Usually high-income consumers have these. Why are they tapping their LOCs? Alarming.

I would be interesting to know the ratio between the US's interest payments of money borrowed from overseas (China) and the GDP. The US economy could be digging a big hole for itself that it can't get out of thanks to GWB's mismanagement.