Is our economy living or dying?

There, of course, is trouble in the economy. How bad it is will certainly be debated for some time, however there is some good news. First, we are technically not in recession currently. That means, in this case, that the economy is still growing, but at a very slow pace. In part, because it grew so fast the last couple of years there must be a slowdown sometime. That is the nature of markets. Also, interest rates are very low. Money is very cheap at the moment, as long as you can qualify. On top of those the unemployment numbers are very low historically as we speak. These all are important for economic turn arounds.

One of the bad things is inflation in food and energy. They are off the charts and will not be coming down significantly for some time (though I would argue that oil is nearing a bust phase, judging by the numbers that are floating around).

Significant also is the slow real estate market. There are many on the sidelines looking to see if we've seen the bottom of the market. Since the banking crisis is being sorted though real estate may not be near as bad as some are predicting. After the election we should see improving numbers there. There are some crazy good deals out there. Some people will make killings soon enough.

Recent bad news has kept the stock market down also. There are some very wary people out there.

This has spilled over into the presidential race and clearly helps the Dem at the moment. We'll see in a couple of months what that effect is.