It's Not the End of the World

To listen to the MSM yammer on and on about the state of the economy, one would think we are immeshed in the biggest economic depression in history. What we really have now is an economic downturn. Last quarter's .6% growth came as a great disappointment to those who are counting on a real recession to get Obama in office in November. They, of course, are embarked on all this recession talk to bolster the chances of their chosen candidate Barack Obama who has made talk of a recession a part of his campaign. Of course if these doom sayers can convince enough squishy voters that we are truly in recession, they might just vote for Obama and his tax raising economics. That would really send our economy into a tailspin and result in the very recession they are trying to scare us about. Most certainly they would then blame it all on Bush and Cheney. It's a convenient paradigm: if anything bad happens, blame it on Bush. So far it has worked for them.

Of course, the classic deffinition of recession is two consecutive quarters of decline in the Gross Domestic Product. This hasn't happened since 1990/1991. That was the Bill Clinton recession. Now the left-wingers are trying to claim that a recession doesn't have to have two quarters of negative growth. It seems that a recession is whenever they say there is one and we'd just better trust them. Essentially, a recession is whenever there is a Republican in the White House.

While nobody likes higher gas prices and other economics woes, we need to reign in our fears somewhat. One aspect of the current slow- down in the economy that impacts every consumer is the price of gasoline. There are reports of people canceling their vacations due the high prices. However just a little math can help people keep things in proper perspective. The average price of gasoline in May of 2007 was $3.20. In May of 2008 it rose to $3.90. The $.70 rise seems like a lot, but if you are an average driver getting 25 miles per gallon and driving 15,000 miles per year, your actual out of pocket cost has gone up by about $35 per month, or roughly $1.15 per day. Would an extra dollar and fifteen cents a day dissuade any self-respecting vacationer? Doubtful if they understand the reality, but the insistent, unremitting, negative drum beat from the mainstream media who are trying to elect their guy by scaring everybody, don't care about facts. And that's a shame. because it not only hurts the families who don't get to make memories while vacationing. It also hurts all the businesses who rely on those travelers. Think about that the next time Obama tells you how bad things are.