Happy Days are Almost Here Again

The recession may be ending, or so I am told by folks on the radio and the TeeVee. I figured this was the case, because my consumer spending has been way up, and I'm one of the leading economic indicators. As I go, so goes the economy. When I got laid off a couple of years ago, we went into retrenchment mode, then our home equity disappeared almost overnight and our 401(k)s shriveled up. Now, we're thinking prospects are looking up, and we're buying stuff. And we didn't need a government stimulus to get us going, although the fact that GOP bozos aren't in charge has had a lot to do with our rising confidence levels. The stimulus package probably helped even if by way of an economic placebo affect.

My home equity is still not going back up, and I've stopped looking at my 401(k), so I don't yet feel as wealthy as I once did. Houses still aren't moving quickly, and there's a glut of McMansions in the area where we live. But values aren't falling like they were, and it looks as if home values may have been corrected and are now stable. We're lucky in that our house is still worth more than what we paid for it almost 6 years ago.

Let's just hope neither of us gets sick.