Folks, the recession is over. The economy is still depressed, but it is no longer falling. I wrote back in April 2009 (http://www.progress.org/2009/fold610.htm) that the second derivative had turned positive. That means that the change in the rate of growth had gone from negative to positive: the downturn was slowing and would become an upturn. I also wrote that, “The recession will most likely end in the fall of this year 2009.” And so it did. The doom-and-gloomers were saying that the economy would plunge into another great depression, with massive business failures and unemployment. Perma-bears were forecasting that the stock market would plunge down almost to zero. That has not happened, because governments have not repeated the worst of the mistakes of the 1930s.

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