I still snicker a little bit when I think back to the July 1, 2008 news that boasted the fact that we didn’t “officially hit bear market”. The National Bureau of Economic Research has a pretty good description of what a recession consists of (read about it here for yourself). It brings into consideration GDP (for those of you who slept during Economics 101, you can see the definition of GDP here), labor statistics and is defined as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. A recession begins just after the economy reaches a peak of activity and ends as the economy reaches its trough.”
I think we can say it all together: “We’re in a recession.” There, didn’t that feel good? Now let’s get out of it. Look around for a second. You have IndyMac going downward (is it a surprise that they were spun off from Countrywide?), Fannie and Freddie in a very unstable condition, and CNN’s headline for real estate news today reads: “Six months, 343,000 lost homes: Through the first half of 2008, the foreclosure rate shows little sign of letting up.”
I’m not big on apocalyptic scare tactics, but…
…something tells me we’re not coming out of this anytime soon.
