Since the bailout scam started in September I have run across numerous people who seem to think this depression we’re in is just a severe form of the regular business cycle and that while it may take a little longer, things will right themselves and we can go back to our unbridled spending sprees. I’m afraid it’s time to introduce a few drops of an emetic into the Kool-Aid everyone is drinking. It’s a depression. We all need to get that through our heads. It may not seem exactly like the great depression but it’s the situation we’re in. There are a lot of cushions in place, all over the place, that are keeping the nation as a whole from feeling the full effect at this point. Things don’t always get reported in the media. Things get bad in one area and people move to another which has not been hit quite as hard yet. Overall the media has done a disservice to the people. The word recession should have been brought to the forefront in 2004. They should have interviewed Certified Financial Planners and experts like Suze Orman instead of folks from Wall Street. People should have been told to start preparing then. The message should have been that you cannot consume more than you have produced. We’re starting to learn now but it’s a bitter pill and a hard lesson. Another thing we need to start learning is to give up vain hopes of a speedy recovery or a recovery based on government solutions because we also cannot spend our way to prosperity.