Reply #3: There is no law ...

[earthside]

... of the universe that says the only, absolute way to determine whether or not the economy is in recession is by charting GDP.

It is just as reasonable to make that determination based on employment, household income, real product manufacturing, tax revenues, etc., any number of other factors.

It is my opinion that this "double dip" talk" is just silly -- we've never got out the recession in order to "double dip" back into it in the first place.

If Pres. Obama and Timmy G. had adopted this attitude then I think they would have more seriously considered actions that were more innovative to turn the economy around. Instead they decided that this was just a bit worse than usual traditional downturn in the business cycle and have mostly used remedies from the 1930s.

So, unfortunately, we're just going to muddle along ... with Washington and Wall Street fighting the last economic war ... until something really major breaks and we're all forced then to consider radical changes.