Well, the recent economic good news has been a welcome surprise this week. I mean, it’s not anything amazing and Americans are right to feel apprehensive. But it always helps (the economy) to look on the bright  side.

The first thing people should realize is that we are *not* in a recession. Laymen, especially journalists and pompous college campus know-it-alls, love to throw this term around. But the term “recession” doesn’t mean “an economy that isn’t doing so good.” It is defined by two consecutive quarters of negative growth. And that just hasn’t happened. The quarter that just wrapped up, the first in 2008, saw 0.6% growth in GDP. This isn’t awesome, but it’s also not a recession. Worth pointing out, at least.

And this nice article is just chock-full of positive information. Just look at the first paragraph!

Wall Street shot higher Thursday as investors, while anticipating another dismal jobs report Friday, viewed the rising dollar and falling oil prices as promising signs for the economy. The Dow Jones industrial average soared nearly 190 points to close above 13,000 for the first time since Jan. 3.

I’m not trained in economics, and frankly I find it all very confusing. But it doesn’t help for our journalists and politicians (who are probably just as clueless as me) to run around with doomsday language of imminent economic disasters. It depresses people, and then they don’t want to spend money, and that just hurts the economy more.