Actually, the recession is over because the National Bureau of Economic Research says so. We've been in recovery since the summer--not of 2010, but the sumer of 2009. Whew, that makes me feel so much better. We've been recovering for quite some time now.

For what it's worth, this article displays the main indicators used by NBER. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to see those graphs going UP!

Meanwhile inflation is close to zero, okay maybe 2 or 3% . . or maybe Inflation is Actually Near 10%. . .

Recessions are estimated to have started and stopped by a simple metric of growth and time. It is a useful metric but the definition doesn't have anything to do with overall prosperity, economic health, or fairness. Understand that and you will avoid a lot of confusion.

The plan, as far back as Reagan's advisors, was to bankrupt the nation and then use the claim of poverty to liquidate the poor and put the uppity middle class in their place. To deregulate, set capital free, and roll the clock back to the Guilded Age. Seen as the good-old-days before regulations, and labor got in the way. The theory is that during economic hardship the aristocracy will remain untouched in their gated community.

The situation is fairly well explained here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNi1sevKNd0&feature=player_embedded

Are buzzards a big problem in the USA ?
What protective measures are advised ? would a shotgun suffice.
Sorry, could not resist !

Buzzard, hungry buzzards, circling overhead.... We're doomed!

Isn't it wonderful how spell checkers let us say the strangest things?

I find it unsettling that some members here are posting their “tinfoil” concerns in this thread. Not because of the otherwise tinfoil nature of the concerns, rather because I share them. I simply can’t buy the news and government statements that all is well with the economy when I haven’t seen a cost of living increase in three years, my wife has been laid off for 8 months, my house has lost 60% of its peak value, and the cost of everything seems to be escalating at break-neck (or break-pocketbook) speed. We are both post- baccalaureate degree holders, so it’s not limited to low-wage or unskilled workers.

It is alarming that peak oil awareness is present here and being discussed as it has been considered tinfoil by so many for so long. It is the reason I sought out this forum, to gain some insight into preparation without the hysteria of many of the other survival-oriented sites. I share in Sue’s opinion that there’s a big, life-altering Oh-Oh on the horizon. Possible players: peak oil, economic collapse, climate change, food/water shortages. When taken together and ruminating on the feed backs, that’s one hell of an Oh-Oh. I’m not sure how to equip myself or family to deal with such.

All is not well with the economy. The same ones that ran up the debt and drove the financial system into the ditch, causing the recession, are the ones who tell me they are sadly forced to cut services to save money, and hand the nation over to the tender mercies of the efficient and benevolent corporations and financiers to make things right. None of the major talking heads depend on those services and few of them saw much real down side when the financial system went down in flames because their money protected them. Even legal restrictions are little barrier when you can hop into the tax deductible corporate jet and go to Guatemala to do what you can't do here.

When I see discussion on TV it is always bankers and financiers and corporate leaders who are doing the talking. Where are the union representatives and people looking out for labor. I'm tired of some guy making millions claiming to be talking for the middle class. The median income in the US is roughly $45,000 but everyone claiming to be looking out for people who make $45K all make twenty or more times that much. And most of them work very hard at hanging out with people making many times that. Other than the gardener and doorman they may never interact with anyone making median wage.

You don't need to be destitute to empathize with and seek to look out for poor people. But you ought to spend time around those you claim to represent. You ought to know and understand how they feel and what their lives are like.

The popular myth is that poor people just want to be handed huge amounts of money and sit around eating bon-bons. Which tells me the people who came up with that didn't know much about poor people. I've lived and worked around poor people and it is hard to find any that don't just want a decent job, dignity, a fair chance at living a modest life, and some chance their children might move up a little. Failing that, yes, they will take what money gets tossed to them. Just getting by, and hating every minute of it, is better than not getting by. The poor are always in survival mode.

You want to learn urban survival skills? Find out where the homeless people stay and hang out. Average Americans often feel fear going into depressed urban areas. Imagine being homeless and living there. You have no resources. No reserve. Even the police don't take you seriously. Just staying alive is a trick. Staying relatively healthy and sane is remarkable.

The simple fact is that there has never been a settled and quiet time when all was well in this nation. But, you ask, what about the good old days, when we were united and happy working together? Say ... during WW2. We all set aside our differences and pulled together. Really ...

"During the forty-four months from Pearl Harbor to V-J Day, there were 14,471 strikes involving 6,774,000 strikers: more than during any period of comparable length in United States history.29 In 1944 alone, 369,000 steel and iron workers, 389,000 auto workers, 363,000 other transportation equipment workers, and 278,000 miners were involved in strikes."

From: http://libcom.org/history/world-war-ii-post-war-strike-wave

Look up the 'Zoot-suit' riots, and, of course, there was that unpleasantness with the Japanese-Americans during WW2. Land and property abandoned, confiscated, most of it systematically stolen.

Point here is that the US hasn't had settled times and the 'good old days' are largely an illusion. Going back to 'better times' assumes there were better times. It all has been, and looks to always be, a rattle and roll existence.

The best anyone can do is to set up systems that take the worse of the rough edges off, moderate the system to avoid the worse of the extremes, and prepare as a society and individually as time and resources allow. There aren't any easy answers but we got this far, through some very rough times with less to work with, and that should give us hope that we will get through the troubles of our times.

The Japanese are rebuilding after a huge disaster. But they rebuilt after WW2. That was many times worse.

Ah, World War II, a united, strong nation, working together.....

I grew up in Hattiesburg, Miss. during the war years, because my Dad trained for the war at nearby Camp Shelby. People then talked of two wars, the current unpleasantness and the Civil War (War Between the States, as it was termed locally). The CW was quite vivid and there was no love lost for those carpetbaggin' dammmyankees who were now infesting the Mother Soil.

Let's not even talk about the separate (but equal!) black and white porcelain drinking fountains in the local Woolworth's, or all the other baggage of a hermetically sealed, racist society. I attended my first three grades at a run down dilapidated school. I never had any idea of where or what black kids attended.

In many ways things have gotten better in this country, but they are far from perfect, and we probably have no very good idea of what the next bump in the road will be (I was certainly clueless on 811). That is why they are challenging....

Sounds like they calmed down considerably between 1864 and 1942. In South Carolina they still often call it the "War of Northern Aggression" and until recently genteel ladies, in polite company no less, would spit every time they said the name of the general who marched Atlanta to Savannah. (Safer for monitors and keyboards in SC if I don't use that name.)

Sue,

When I read this NY Times article, I thought of this thread. An apparently well-planned and sophisticated group stole truckloads of produce and frozen meat! This group created a fake trucking company that was properly registered and insured. They were hired like any normal trucking company, went around picking up their loads for a few days, and then just disappeared. Crazy.