Of course, when Clinton was President, an unemployment rate of 5.6% was reason for ecstasy. Unemployment rising to 5.2% from 5.0% under Bush is a harbinger of doom. By any measure used to judge the Clinton economy, the Bush economy is booming, but you'd never know it from the media and most commenters.

This feels different to me. Talking to a number of small business owners, they're ALL telling me that sales have been dismal and that a significant recession is coming.

Hahaha....that's exactly what I was thinking too. If we end up in recession 5 years from now, do I get points if I say "I've seen it coming for the past several years!!"

Recession is two or more consecutive quarters of negative growth. There's no indication that this will happen this year, though there are a few (just a few) warning signs. 5% unemployment is still extraordinarily low. All this speculation does no one any good. And those who make laughable statements that we are headed for a crash obviously have absolutely no knowledge of economics or history. We didn't even have a crash as a result of Sept. 11 (though the markets were hit pretty hard).

That's what none of them really want to admit.

That's why they have to keep lowering the dollar, in hopes that people around the globe would buy more American.

But then that oil price hurts. It makes everything in America that much more expensive for Americans. It may be cheaper to buy the dollar for strong foreign currencies, but man, let's just take a look at the big picture.

We'd be lucky if we can get past this without a major slump.

I hope we can get past this lull without a major drop.

Yes, we will also be okay.

It's all a part of the business cycle. It's happened many times before, and will undoubtedly happen again.

http://www.financialsense.com/fsn/main.html
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/
http://www.goldrush21.com/
The Dollar Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Cures, Richard Duncan

I mean, there is nothing at all like a completely non-scientific poll of mostly left of center Americans (and a fair share of foreigners) to tell me that we are going to enter a recession.

@neat police: I beg to differ, it is neat to see how much recession rhetoric people are buying into.

However, this doesn't mean that the housing slump, credit crunch, and pricey oil aren't taking a toll. The sudden .3% jump is worrisome.

U have been warned..ha ha ha

Then there's the under trained older generation that is just simply out of touch with current technology, but they'll all be out of the picture in the next 10 years, so you can't soley blame it on them.