It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours. - Harry S. truman

Well it may soon be official. Today the Commerce Department confirmed Gross Domestic Product grew at only 0.6% for the last quarter of 2007. In April, the report for the first quarter of 2008 will be out and it is expected to show negative growth. For those of you keeping score, if we get two quarters of negative growth, then it is officially a recession. Hold on, will know by June or July if we are in an official recession.

You see it does not matter that milk, bread, eggs, and cereal prices are killing you. It does not matter that gas prices are eliminating disposable income or that your job is in jeopardy. We are not officially in a recession, thank you.

That is until we get official word from the Commerce Department in June or July.

In an excellent article in January, Barbara Ehrenreich, writing for the Huffington Post, pointed out that over 50% of Americans already believe we are in a recession. For the public, the economists' definition is meaningless - hard times are hard times, with or without an economist's blessing. Technically, I suppose the proper comment is, "all leading indicators point to a recession."