All Is Well

"All is well!" These were the words Chip Diller cried shortly before he was trampled by an angry mob at Faber's Homecoming Parade back in 1962.
Living as we do in a twenty-four hour news cycle, it seems hard to believe that we missed this little bit of news: The recession ended in 2009. Pardon me? The "Great Recession," the one that had us teetering on the brink of Another Great Depression, is over? It's been over for more than a year, according to a blue ribbon panel of economists whose job it is to sort out such matters. This was, for history's sake, the longest recession our country has endured since World War Two. It clocked in at a whopping eighteen months.
So, for those of you who aren't sitting in front of a calendar, here's how it breaks down: The recession began back in December of 2007 and wound up a year ago last June. All that prosperity you thought you were feeling but had to dismiss it over the past year turns out to be recovery after all. The economy is growing again. Good times are just around the corner. A very dark, and scary corner.
"The hole was so deep that a lot of people out there are still hurting." These are the words that our President used to describe the situation. People who are out of work. People who have lost their homes. People who won't know the recession is over until the newspaper under which they are sleeping carries that headline. Meanwhile, Republicans, Democrats and Tea Partiers will be holding thumb-wrestling matches and other feats of relative strength to determine whose vision of the American Dream we will be saddled with for the next two to six years. More government, less government, tax cuts, tax increases, or a jobs program for newborns, it's all going to be sorted out before November, you can count on that.
Unless the election is already over and nobody thought to tell us.