Are we or are we not in a recession? I would think I should know because my part-time job involves studying costs of things. But I haven’t a clue. Recessions, just as most of economics, are hard for me to understand. Here is an explanation. And here is a more simplified version. In a nutshell, being that I am a nut, here is an even more simplified explanation from what I gather from these above linked explanations:
You got your economy and your economy is like gang busters. I’ve never really understood how gang busters were something that were fabulous. It’s kind of like the cat’s pajamas, the best, but I always liked that saying because it makes me think of a kitty cat running around in pajamas. But I am off track. The economy is good. Demand for goods and services increase. You know, that good old supply and demand. The prices increase, like say, gasoline? Demand decreases because it’s too freaking expensive to buy, like say, gasoline? Now you got yourself a recession. You have no gangs to bust and your cat has to sleep in the nude.
But a lot of bidness people don’t like that “R” word. As the great evangelist, the Rev. Ike supposedly said about putting bills in the collection plate instead of small change, coins: ” … make me nervous in the service.” So a lot of euphemisms are used for recession like “downturn” or “It’s not a recession. Everything is fine.”
And thus oil prices have gone down, today at least. But gas prices at the station across the street are $2.999 per gallon, and that’s cheap compared to a lot of places in the country. (Oh and just because we’ve got a gazillion refineries in our county doesn’t mean we are going to have cheap gas. That oil is coming from somewhere by ship, it’s imported, like a fine wine and as expensive.)
So, no, I don’t know either whether we are in a recession. But I do know we are in a sucky economy for lack of wanting to click onto the thesaurus and thus find a better word. And I do know that I am in a pretty crappy economic state right now. Not as bad as this time last year when I was sleeping in my Toyota pickup, but I could be a whole lot better.