The economy is not looking good

[WickedLou9]

Payrolls Drop for 1st Time Since 2003: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

payrolls are dropping
Unemployment is up ( but still not terrible)
Inflation is running just over 4%
GDP growth in December was less than 1% ( annualized )

It's not horrible but it's certainly not good.

Pretty much all of the indicators are either flat or indicating weakness.

[6SpeedTA95]

The brakes are definately on, about the time summer rolls around the substantial results of these fed rate cuts should start showing up. We could definately see a contraction here in the first quarter and perhaps the second quarter as well. Two consecutive quarters of contraction is a text book recession.

You're right things aren't terrible, but I'm definately glad the fed appears to have a handle on the situation.

[Thorgrim]

With growth that was SO CLOSE to negative, I'd consider it an official recession if we had negative growth this quarter

[bheld]

We've got an economy that depends on financial sleight-of-hand. The house of cards has got to fall sometime. We need to rally together and figure out our national priorities and use government to get it done. That's the only way to avoid a total economic meltdown.