The political news that dominated the media through the 2008 presidential election morphed into coverage of the sinking economic conditions here and abroad as 2008 waned. Since then, a daisy-chain series of bad economic news appears almost daily, whether it’s the latest layoffs, news on housings starts, or unemployment figures.
Apparently, the official proclamation that the U.S. was in a recession came Dec. 1, when the National Bureau of Economic Research (www.nber.org) Business Cycle Dating Committee said so. It was also noted that the recession had started in December 2007. According to NBER, “A recession is 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.”
