"IT WILL COME BACK"

At least that's the talk of Those Who Know. You know, about the economic recession. You know, about stimuli programs. About bail outs. About debt. About the government sticking its nose into business corporations. About piling more debt on debt. But it will come back.

It always does. Cyclic. Economic downturns spiked by tweaks of interest rates. Consumer confidence. Business acumen.

But this feels different. Granted we've never experienced anything like this in our memories. So that makes it worse.

You either have these rosy predictions. Those long haul predictions of return to normalcy. Or you have those who have blinders on. The disheartened. The pessimists.

And that's me. I never considered myself much of an economist. I shied away from the subject in junior college because I feared the teacher, later a friend. I should give him a call to get his take on the whole fiasco where a country tries to spend its way out of huge indebtedness. But he's a realtor now. I'm not sure he would want to talk to me.

Yet, I'd expect I would be able to get through. The phones don't ring in most real estate offices any more.