We Are Officially Past the Danger of Recession

The Federal Reserve Chairman and others around the nation have decided that the danger of a recession has passed. They have thoroughly examined the leading economic indicators, factored in the price of oil, patted themselves on the back for their response to the mortgage crisis and given each other high-fives for averting a major economic downturn. I think it must illustrate their being out-of-touch with the reality of working class Americans.

When gasoline takes a larger-and-larger share of the family budget and the price of food, cosmetics, plastics, and everything else that is either transported or manufactured with petroleum based products (I think that's about everything) rises dramatically, people are worse off. Either the wrong indicators are being used to measure the economy or the facts are being ignored. People have less disposable income today than they did a year ago. They have much less than they did two years ago. They will spend less for clothes, they will take less expensive vacations (or forego them altogether), they will go to the movies less, eat out less, and on-and-on. The effect is lagged. It will be months before we truly feel the impact of higher gasoline and oil prices.

I think the stock market already recognizes that fact. It is only a matter of time before the lack of capital investment in industry begins to show. It will take years for our economy to recover.

The Dem's want to make it worse with added burdens on consumers through Global Warming legislation. They also think the way to resolve the problem is through taxes. Let me see, if we (consumers) already have less to spend on non-fuel items, what happens when you soak us with additional taxes? Duh, we have less??