The statement came even as the stock market, which had a rebound last week, tanked on the news, dropping 400 points by noon Monday and closing the day down by 680. With a public still reeling from months of soaring gas prices and the fallout of higher food and other retail items (due in part to exploding transportation costs), the reality of recession with or without documentation from a national bureau.

In making their determination on the state of American economy, the NBES examined records on jobs and job loss, real personal income, industrial production, and wholesale and retail sales. The last two recessions (1990-91 and 2001) both lasted less than a year.

Initial reports of “better than expected” holiday spending may not be an indicator of the true retail market this holiday season, since many shoppers who bought into the Black Fridayscenerio seemed to be after the sharply discounted big ticket items like computers and audio/visual equiment. One of the problems for retailers is that these items have been so steeply discounted so early there is a diminishing profit margin — little “wiggle room” for more cuts. Apart from these specialty items, consumers seemed conservative and, at least in Clarksville, not as willing to randomly spend.

There is no fudging a national declaration of “recession.” It’s, here. It’s now. And it’s been here for a while. It’s an issue on which the current administration has been in a state of persistent denial. For the rest of America, the lower and middle class worker bees, it’s reality.They have the bills and the decreased spending power to prove it.

Photograph By: Bill Larson

This is Del Del Jekins. I took time to speak with him as I made my way down Madison Avenue the other day. Mr. Jenkins works in the construction industry, pouring concrete. With the slowing economy, he came to Clarksville looking for work in our local construction industry, but as he told me, “So far things are not looking too good.” Clarksville has yet to feel the pinch of the national recession as intensely as other areas of our country, but have no doubt that it eventually will. Historically, Clarksville is generally slow entering a recession and even slower getting out of one. This fact does not bode well for the potential success of the redevelopment plans that Clarksville’s city government is dead set on undertaking.

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