Recession? Or Situation Normal?

I was interested to read in the newspaper last Monday that we are now in a recession.

Apparently, the last one ended in June 2009 and a new one has now begun.  Leaving aside the technical definition of recession, I mentioned this to several people and no one felt they had been a part of any period of economic expansion.  "What?  It ended? When?"

If we can't tell the difference between recession and expansion anymore, then what are we facing as we go forward?

It has dawned on me that this economic environment might be typical for the rest of  my working life.  And my retirement, which I now expect to take when I am 88 or so.  That the world everyone jokingly talked about "leaving for their kids" is here.

Sadly, when I mentioned this realization to a couple of people, no one disagreed.  In fact, one person supported the idea further by saying that the inequities we see with wealth are so divergent that it will likely take decades for them to wash through the system.

Another person showed me a graph of where America stands in investment in social services relevant to investment in medicine and how we are not being efficient with proactive help socially and that we need to do more of that.  (Another post, another day.)

I may be a bit of a Pollyanna, but as soon I acknowledged to myself that this is what I am going to deal with forever, my outlook went through a slight, yet significant, shift.  "Okay," I thought.  "I can work in this.  I HAVE worked in this."  Some people say that we have been contracting since the tech bubble burst in 2001.  I have been out here that whole time.

If things get better, I guess I can be pleasantly surprised.

Meanwhile, over the last four years, I have improved my personal balance sheet and the balance sheets of others.  I have reduced my reliance on leverage and I have contained my footprint.  I have become comfortable and accepting of the home that I possibly will live in forever (because it is so far underwater I can never contemplate leaving).  I have been grateful to work with the organizations I work with.  I decided that if I was going to work for another 50 years, I could slow down just a bit.  I have settled in to life and taken time for the meaningful along the way.

I know there are many who are out of work.  I know there are even more who are underemployed.  I know that I could become one of these at any moment.  For now, though, I am setting my sights on the long haul because if you have no choice, then you work with what you have.