What Economic Recession?

This chart was published front and center of the New York Times on Saturday, along with an article entitled "Seeing an End to the Good Times (Such as They Were)" by David Leonhardt. My reaction to this article and chart was quite simply, what recession?

It is quite clear that we are not in a recession...I mean during the recession of 2001 housing prices declined...didn't they? Interesting enough, housing prices across the country actually increased during the 2001 recession. So for the 2001 recession two of three of the economic indicators in the chart were showing negative numbers. Back then that was enough to scream recession.

Current day, housing prices are down, jobs are down, and the financial markets are down. Why is no one screaming? In my opinion, (and please recognize this is only an opinion and by no means am I an economic professional), is that this recession is far worse that the one in 2001. In fact this one may be so bad, that they are not talking about it publicly in fear that it will create a consumer confidence meltdown similar to what happened at the beginning of the great depression.

Continuing my opinion from what David said in his article, it seems as if we "faked" the recovery from the 2001 recession. In essence consumers used lines of credit to maintain their quality of living while inflation increased. With no raises in years, poor choices by mortgage lenders & brokers, consumer spending has effectively ceased and coporate profits decline. As the credit crunch continues, the dollar weakens, banks "secretly" collapse and the only thing preventing another great depression is consumer panic.

Once again, this post is highly opinionated. The best thing we as consumers can do is NOT PANIC. The economy has already begun to correct itself. Have we seen the bottom...I highly think we have not, but recovery has begun.