The "recession" has been way overblown. But the funny thing about recessions is that they don't need to be brought about by anything real - perceived weakness

The "recession" has been way overblown. But the funny thing about recessions is that they don't need to be brought about by anything real - perceived weakness in the economy is enough to get people to spend less which leads to stores needing less labor and such. Spending doesn't help the economy (in fact, most economists believe that saving helps more as long as you don't put your savings in your mattress). Consistent behavior does. For example, if people save money consistently, it means that the supply of loanable funds is plentiful and it's cheap and easy to finance business activities. Likewise, if people spend consistently, you know that you will have high sales and that makes business easy. If people are buying like crazy and then politicians start screaming "recession! recession!" and you stop spending money, stores and manufacturers are going to have a lot of excess inventory that they can't sell. The same is true of all parts of a modern economy. It's based on the wheels spinning smoothly. If something is a bit out of alignment (different from normal on the negative side), it causes problems. Of course, these are very small problems (as much as politicians try to make them sound like the end of the world). It's not as if you're getting terminal diseases.