answer:No. The economy is still growing, just not very rapidly. The technical definition of a recession is two straight quarters of GDP shrinkage. The latest numbers on GDP growth, jobs and trade ballance are actually better than had been expected. We did much better in exports and cut imports more than had been predicted. Of course, if you are one of the millions who lost their job in the downturn of 2007–2010 and you haven’t been able to land decent work since, it sure won’t feel like a recovery to you. We need something like the microelectronics breakthrough to really put our manufacturing base and hogh-paying jobs back in high gear. A breakthrough in clean, renewable energy that can be beat fossil fuel in cost would do the trick. The last thing we want to do is stop investing and somehow think that porsperity will come to us as long as we do nothing to help it.