[Pearls Before Swine]

the recession appears to be the mildest on record...

Tell it to my friends in the telecom industry, where its an outright depression. Many large, well-known companies have cut staff by over 50 percent, such as Lucent and Nortel. Of course, this isn't the fault of tax cut or monetary policy. There was gross overbuilding of fiber and telecom capacity, fueled both by a Wall Street mania and by government actions in the form of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. That made it appear profitable for a host of new competitors to enter business in competition with the Bells by mandating that the Bells give them connection access to their networks. Many of these competitors, the so called CLECS (co-exchange located carriers) had their IPOS, their brief day in the sun, and flamed out. The equipment suppliers had a boom and a bust. An interesting episode.

[Moonman62]

Tell it to my friends in the telecom industry, where its an outright depression.

In terms of lost wealth and lost economic opportunity this is one of the worst economic downturns our country has ever experienced.

[Warhammer]

No kidding. I used to work for a small telecom equipment provider who sold primarily to CLECs. I saw the plane starting to go down and bailed out at the beginning of this year. They just cut their staff by 17% two weeks ago. I predict that they will continue to cut staff each quarter that they have not returned to profitability, and at their current burn rate, they will be out of money by the end of the year. I hope I'm wrong, because I still have friends there.

[smokinleroy]

You sound like a DU'er.

[VRWC_minion]

It is the nature of a recession that when one segment of the ecomomy stalls, others pick up. From your vantage point your area has stalled but the other areas ae picking up the slack.

[GuillermoX]

No matter how fast the entire economy is growing, there is ALWAYS a sector which is down. Conversely, no matter how fast the economy is shrinking, there is ALWAYS a sector which is up.