Falling Back into Recession

I'm not a researcher, and I don't have macro-level information to back me up, but I'm fairly convinced that we're already slipping back into another recession.

Plenty of folks probably think we never left the last one, and it certainly feels that way. High unemployment and even higher underemployment, a disastrous housing market, rising prices and our Federal, State and Local governments teetering on bankruptcy sure doesn't feel like a recovery.

I remember during the Bush years when the unemployment rate was in the 4's, some Bush-hating Democrats I know used to claim that the country was in dire financial straits. Their logic was based on a trumpeted Democrat talking point that said, sure, it may seem like there are plenty of people with jobs, but those jobs stink. The logic said that the average worker's effective wages were declining while the captains of big business were rolling in it. You know, the old rich-get-richer while poor-get-poorer theme.

So we put Democrats in charge. They celebrated a decline in the unemployment rate to 8.8 percent this week. While job losses have slowed, and some folks are returning to work, the underlying statistics suggest that 8.8 is a misleading number. Because so many have simply given up on their job search, so they get dropped from the statistics. Others take part-time minimum-wage jobs even though they obviously prefer a full-time job but can't find one, and they're also dropped from the statistics.

All of these statistics lag behind what's happening today. My personal feeling, based on the companies I work with around the country pulling back again and gas getting back around $4, tells me we're entering another recession period.

I am familiar with companies that will soon be going through layoffs. I know of companies that are cancelling capital projects because orders are slowing down. I know of companies that are scaling back because they can't get financing in a very tight loan market.

Executives openly talk about the only thing they think can get the economy back on track; an Obama defeat next year. And these guys aren't necessarily hyper-partisan types. They are very clear about the reasons they believe it's so critical to replace the president with someone to roll back the specific policies that are destroying their businesses.

The health care law, the suffocating regulations affecting many of my clients' businesses directly, the shutdown of all energy development in the country, the investment-killing budget deficits and debts being piled up, and the willful destruction of the dollar are all specific reasons behind their strongly held belief that removing this president is the only way to reverse this economic disaster.

It seems to me that people voted for Democrats thinking that somehow they'd make their employers pay them better. Instead, they destroyed their jobs by destroying the companies that used to employ them.

I tend to agree that the only real hope for better days lies in electing a new president next year, but I'd add to that the need to replace enough left-wing Senators to roll back the Obama agenda. Even then, recovery is only possible if we find and elect the right people to lead, with common sense, intelligence, and the integrity to put the country first; especially above their contributors and benefactors who hope to gain personal benefits by getting their guy (or gal) to Washington.