The End is Near, or So “They” Say- By: Carl Hampton

Description : Its official, according to the Moody’s economy and MSNBC, the end is near, there really is a light at the end of the tunnel and we should all be happy to hear that.

What “they” are talking about is the end of the recession. Most of the so called experts have seen the light at the end of that long, narrow tunnel, for some time and there is hope.

After what has seemed like a lifetime but was really only the better part of two years, can all those hardworking American’s stop Google ing budget tips and ways to save a penny or two? Well, if you believe what “they” say it’s almost over and even more impressive—there is a timeline. That’s right, there is a paper timeline as to when a specific state, or even city/metro area, is to be out of the red recession economic crunch.

St. Louis, Missouri, the Gateway to the West, is a good example of the good news of progress, their experts say, the city entered into the recession in December 2008, but now is considered to be “in recovery”. But what do the words “in recovery” mean, besides my personal love of “quotation marks”?

How did Moody’s economy and MSNBC come to these conclusions, well they have graphed what they call an adversity index. This handy bit of knowledge and technology measures the economic health of 381 metro areas as well as in each of the 50 states, each area is labeled as to one of 4 categories, recession, at risk, recovering, or expanding.

Recently they have released an interactive map online that shows the current condition of major cities, like St. Louis. This map has labeled St. Louis as “in recovery”, now that’s rather impressive given the following information.

While employment is still down (as of Aug 2009) 3.75 , and housing is down too, by 11.53 . These experts are saying that if these numbers are put together with all of the other information then by the 1st quarter of 2010 St. Louis should officially be out of the recession.

Things seem to be shaping up, with the daily costs to live in St. Louis lower than the national average and the lower cost of having a business there, St.Louis and the rest of the Midwest and Great Plains States are leading the way for the great American recovery. In fact, as of August 2009, the recession has officially ended in one fifth of American major cities, specifically the Midwest and the Great Plains.

It should be remembered that we were in a hole that we had so expertly dug for ourselves.

Everyone knew we were living far above our means, yet we just kept spending, buying cars we really did not need and homes we could never hope to keep. The really big question here is, while this is good news for our pocketbooks, wallets, and state of mind, are we going to keep current on what we’ve learned, are we going to stay frugal and stay on the side of caution and good economic judgment are we going to stop over spending, or are we going to throw caution to the wind and over spend again?

God Bless America.

Article Source : http://www.look4articles.com/

Author Resource : "Your Money Matters" Carl Hampton, authur of "From Credit Despair To Credit Millionaire" http://CarlHampton.com