[Brilliant]

Actually, now that I look at the data again, I see that I misstated. The NBER says that the economic peak began in Dec. 2007, and that the economic decline that has happened since then qualifies as a recession. But the BEA says that GDP has actually increased at a 3.2% since then:

http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=1&FirstYear=2007&LastYear=2008&Freq=Qtr

So yes, we are in a recession, but the GDP is still increasing at a pretty healthy rate, at least as of the end of the third quarter.

[rb22982]

The 2nd quarter bump was the $300 billion stimulus (annualized at 1.2 trillion). That was nothing but borrowing from future GDP.