Recession For Dummies

According to the most trusted sources, for example, the Federal Reserve Board and government economists, the Recession has ended. For those of you who might have missed this turnaround, we offer this simple explanation of how you could have recognized this wonderful turn of events without having gone to an elite university, or, in my case, P.S. 101.

1) The total value of your 401K and home are now exactly equal to your pre-recession 401K balance.

2) More bankers are attending Federal Reserve Board interest rate meetings than Federal Penitentiary Prayer meetings.

3) New York State's Attorney General investigates more state government officials than insurance and banking CEO's.

4) Former President Clinton convinces North Korea's Leader to invest in T-Bills instead of old Russian nuke parts, while presenting him with a gift of 10 pantsuits in assorted pastels.

5) Congress, having excoriated those Auto-Wrecks boys over use of corporate jets, flexes its new-found corporate wings and orders up some new Boeings and Gulfstreams of its own.

6) Russia's real Czar, V. Putin, stops referring to the US as "Iceland with no ice."

7) Suddenly, 10 yr. Deficit projections have been reduced to $7 Trillion from $10T. Phew!

8) Even Healthcare looks better. The President calmed fears of a huge government healthcare bureaucracy this week by saying that a new agency would be just like the US Postal Service as it competes with Fedex and UPS. Double Phew!!

9) Albany, NY rebounds from calls to close it down and slightly remake it into a huge prison, by once again being acknowledged as home to the country's worst state government, instead of second worst. Springfield, Ill. will now be closed and made into a Federal prison.

10) The HR Director who phone-screened you for a Bear Stearns job, then moved to Lehman, where she wouldn't take your call, just phone-screened you again at Citi. Short it.

11) Recessionwire.com, that brilliant brainchild of three brilliant former Conde Nast editors, is considering a name change: letsdoitalloveragain.com