Treatment without diagnosis is malpractice

This is not a political blog and it will not turn into one. But perhaps you would like to know a bit more about this recession we keep hearing about and reading about in the media. We have not been in a recession ...yet. Technically, Bush was correct, though many people don't want to believe that for one reason or another. A recession can only be properly identified after two consecutive quarters when there has been a decline in the GDP. Jul-Sept the economy grew at a 4.6% pace. That slowed to a .4% increase in the Oct-Dec quarter, but still it was an increase, not a decrease. Based on other economic indicators, there are difficult economic times upon us, but not a recession. If we find in mid to late April that the first quarter was a negative, then we still can't declare a recession until a second consecutive quarter of decline. That's the accurate answer to the question that the media seems to have already answered, perhaps driving the nail deeper before the fact rather than being content to simply report what has occurred. Typical. I did a little research in the wee hours of the morning. Warren Buffet says we are in a recession. He's wrong. Sometime in July we might find that the first two quarters of 2008 were the beginning of a recession, but before then it's just hype and hysteria. It's like telling someone they have terminal cancer before any lab results have come back. You will certainly get their attention, just as all this media talk about recession has. But let's not create the news. Do you agree?