The Recession

That Never Arrives - appears to have arrived! The DJIA (a measure of expectations more than reality) finished the session at 8,579.19, a new low for the period of the George W. (CEO Presidency) Bush administration. Don't know about you, but I'm guessing that Dow 40,000 is pretty much out of the question, at least for the forseeable future. A possible reason for the panic selling: the CEO of AFLAC was on CNBC a few moments ago reassuring us that "The smartest men in the financial world are working on this". Another possible reason to panic: George W. (CEO Presidency) Bush is meeting with leaders of the World Of Finance to fix things up. Don't know about you, but I'm selling! Or, I would be if I hadn't spent it all on food and shelter already.
I'm not sure why there's such a frantic need to identify the exact moment at which the economy goes into what they now refer to as a "Technical" Recession. Seems to me that when you've lost your job/house/retirement savings: that's a bad economic indicator. DOW, NASDAQ, FTSE, all those alphabetic indicators be damned! If, as the current candidates for high office say, "The American Workforce Is The Best And Most Productive" ever ever ever; then why can't they get any work? Does "Worker" include the people who work (used to work) at banks and finance companies? Is moving numbers between boxes on the Spreadsheet work?
A lot of these pronouncements sound like they're coming from people tiptoeing past the Cemetary. Or, perhaps they believe, like the Queen Of Hearts, that what I say shall be done is as good as done. Say the fundamentals of the economy are strong (a demonstrable lie!); thus it must be so. Then, when called on the lie, Redefine "Fundamental".