The formal economic definition of a recession is when an economy experiences two or more consecutive quarters of negative economic growth as defined by Gross Domestic Product or GDP.  However, when the National Bureasu of Economic Research declared that the United States was in a recession in the summer of 2008, it back dated the beginning of the recession to December 2007 because you really don't know economically if you are living in a recession until you have already lived through two quarters (six months) of recessive times.  The NBER defined THIS current recession not solely in the traditional economic way based solely on GDP, but also on a number of other factors employment, and industrial production.  Moreover, it was the employment factor that pushed the committee over the edge to declare the recession in the first place, so before these talking head "experts" tout one more time on television that the recession is over, perhaps they should take out their calculators again and compare apples to apples.
 
The American public has become very wise is a time of pundit spinning of their news information constantly and they simply don't believe the economy is even in an uptick yet.  The reality is the uptick comes from GDP from the 3rd Quarter of 2009 where it grew 3.4%.  Still more important is the composition of this supposed economic uptick as defined by one quarter of GDP:  it is made up mostly of either pent up consumer spending or future spending being agregated during the third quarter of this year.  Americans are still importing more than we are exporting (16.4% vs. 14.7%).  The durable goods orders were up 22.3% which primarily represented the Cash For Clunkers programs where Americans turned in 677,081 vehicles which were up to 25 year old gas guzzlers which were still registered to be on the road in 2009,  for brand new more fuel efficient, qualifying vehicles.  That program pumped an artificial $2,850,162,500 into the U.S. economy.   www.cars.gov says that nearly 700,000 cars were sold in fewer than 30 days and that by the end of September (or the end of the 3rd Quarter in discussion) that all dealers had been paid. This is hinky math once again because the government program is merely stealing future auto sales by offering a limited fund of dollars to be distributed only as long as they last.  So, many more cars than normal were sold during that month, the same way that many more vehciles than normal were sold after the 2004 and 2005 devastating hurricanes in Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana.  This consolidated future months' and years' sales into very short time periods and was counted as GDP.  These production and sales numbers should never be used as a basis for future sales forecasts, as they are merely artificially financed one time sales boosts.  Manufacturers and the government need to stop making production and economic forecasts based on short term tradgedies, with funds borrowed from future generations of American children, to pay for current consumption and then calling it increase in GDP!  What crock.
 
In addition, I have called for the housing tax credit to expire for precisely the same reason:  it is artificially inflating sales numbers and decreasing prices in an already depressed market by giving an $8,000 tax credit for first time homebuyers.  However, the negative economic implications for both the future and current, solvent homeowners are far more reaching than the mere Cash for Clunker program.  See the article entitled, "Let the Housing Tax Credit Expire," at http://www.americaspeakon.org/blog/read/628.  This third quarter number represented by Residential Inventory was up 23.4%.  However, NONE of that or the Clunker sales represents TRUE GROWTH because we have pent up inventories being sold at discounted prices and banks scurrying to get housing inventory off their balance sheets that they artificially held on to in 2008 so that they didn't have to actualize these losses for accounting purposes until they were guaranteed further bailouts by the Obama administration.  It's absurd.  None of these $8,000 subsidies is paid for from any current account that will not result in more debt for the U. S. Treasury, just as none of the $2.8 billion clunker program was funded by any tangible money.  Congress' current bill to extend this housing tax credit until June 2010 is just piling more absurdity onto a ridiculous situation because there is no endless pot of gold to get this money to finance this program and they are hurting current homeowners who pay their mortgages by causing unnecessary deflation on their home values in order to have the housing inventory surplus absorbed quickly into the market.  They are trying for force inventory from years' worth of fraud into the market in a short period of time and all it is doing is deflating prices ridiculously to levels where they should have been before all the mortgage fraud started last decade.
 
A brand new economic paradigm of what exactly constitutes growth is obviously necessary for the U.S..  One that does not rely on consumer spending to fuel it, since 95% of American consumers are tapped out because of either unemployment, healthcare crises, or some other lack of funds in their households.  The other 5% is buying everything on sale, including these foreclosed homes at bargain basement prices  This has resulted in a glut in the housing rental markets in the hardest hit areas such as Arizona, Nevada, and Florida.  It is not true growth, nor should it be counted as true GDP, but rather some sort of adjusted GDP, when you take the demand of several months or years and shove it into on quarter's GDP numbers in an effort to bamboozle the American public into thinking that our economy is okay.  And, this pressure to move inventory off banks' books has hurt the American homeowner who just pays his mortgage month to month and lives in the same residence as now HE is potentially in the situation where HIS mortgage is greater than the value of the home.  There are no positive outcomes as economic statistical fraud is no different than the original mortgage fraud that got us into this recession in the first place.  Only REAL job growth where those who worked in the fraudulent upswing in construction, mortgage brokering, real estate sales and other aspects of this mess get transitioned into completely new careers that are legitimate, should this be recognized by the National Bureau of Economic Research as the end of the recession.  Anything less is just a crock to be paid for at some point in the future by somebody because it is over financed just like the housing market that got us into this mess in the first place.

Kimberly Wilcox is currently freelance writing about financial politics, as well as Healthcare policy, specifically, Chemical Injury and its medical & lifestyle consequences.  She is a lifestyle coach to others with chemical injury, chronic fatigue, autism, Gulf War Syndrome & Fibromyalgia, as well as to professional athletes desiring peak performance without use of illegal PED's.  She is an expert on Green Living and her new book will soon be published about the Green Life that she has been forced to live for the last decade.