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After 2 years of economic problems here in the United States, many people are hurting and believe that we are still in a recession. The actual definition of a recession is 2 quarters of negative GDP growth, or a 1.5% rise in unemployment within a year. By definition we are no longer in a recession, but an economic recovery; however if you are unemployed and can't find a job, the recession is still lingering. Things will eventually improve, but unemployment may take several more years before it returns to normal levels. Government intervention in the free market always causes these kind of problems and the damage has already been done; all we can do now is wait. GDP or gross domestic product is steadily on the rise, or at least fluctuating on its way up; but it isn't rising nearly as quickly as economists had predicted. This is a measure of how much our country is producing in products and wealth, and it is a good way to judge the economy as a whole. Companies are restocking shelves and Americans are slowly spending more money on products, but there is still quite a bit of debt and hesitation out there. Extending the tax cuts has helped the situation because it provides a little bit more predictability about how much companies will have to spend in taxes, but the healthcare bill is still looming in the near future. Until all of these problems have been ironed out, most American companies won't have enough faith to start really hiring and expanding. We are in a jobless recovery in this country because companies refuse to hire new workers until they believe things have improved, and they know how much new workers will cost them. Government bailouts award failing companies at the expense of succeeding ones, stimulus programs keep people from seeking employment and creating new businesses, and new government regulations limit how companies can make money. All of these things create a jobless recovery because it's more beneficial for companies to become efficient without hiring new workers, and just ride out the storm. Unions don't help the situation either because they refuse to take any kind of cuts, so their employers don't have the means to hire anyone else. All of these government and union problems will continue to hurt us for awhile but when the real recovery starts, we will have to face a whole different kind of pain. Economic cycles work a lot like the weather on this planet; it's always getting warmer and then colder, and sometimes it gets really warm or really cold. Asking the economy to always improve at a steady pace would be like asking the weather to always be nice and sunny. Politicians would have you believe that there is always someone to blame for the economic woes that you face, but the economy will always go up and down without fail. Government intervention will never solve any free market problems; it can only prolong or shorten the economic cycle, and the government has decided to try and spend its way out of debt. As this cycle begins to improve, we will face a wave of inflation that will cause all of the products and services we buy to go up in price; even as unemployment is going down. Real economic recovery happens when the market place finds a sense of certainty about where things are going. Small businesses need to be started and begin hiring new worker, and companies like Ameriplan need to help solve our healthcare problems. Taxes need to stay low, and the government needs to keep its fingers out of the marketplace. Once we are set on the right course, we need to pay down our national debt rather than just maintaining it. There is no way to alleviate the pain; we need to face it as a nation, take our lumps and overcome our obstacles.
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