Is it Over?

We need a new rule. No one is allowed to say the Recession is over until people start hiring. You can't have 14.9 million people out of work (9.7 percent: Bureau of Labor Statistics) and be singing about the end of the recession.
Yes, yes. I know. Declaring a recession is a complex process based on numerous economic indicators that we non-economists should not dare to question. And I'll be the first to admit I don't have the technical chops to match wits with the likes of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, who made news earlier this week by saying the Recession is "very likely over at this point."
The story of Bernanke's remarks to the Brookings Institute caught my eye Tuesday, splashed as it was over the front page of the Kansas City Star. Why am I just now getting around to posting on it?
Because I was busy picking vegetables, teaching piano, working on the garden book and just doing anything else possible to make up for the pay cut our family is dealing with since the downsizing. So the news that someone thinks the Recession is over was bittersweet.
To me, it feels a little like the USS Economy has dropped a bunch of us off on a desert island and we are waving goodbye as it steams away. In a little while, the people on the boat will have forgotten about us and will be complaining about inflation. Only in another 6 or 8 years, when someone determines it was a "jobless" recovery, will anyone wonder whatever happened to us.
Maybe the New York Times will come back and get some anecdotes.
Yeah, it's hard not to be bitter. It's my eternal struggle, as an optimist wanna-be and Bernanke, you are not helping.