“Recession” or a “Compression”?

One of the first things I ever learned about taking care of myself or someone else in a medical emergency was to apply pressure and try to compress the wound. I remember hearing as a kid growing up for all kinds of hurts, “put a compress on it”. Lately, I have been thinking that this is exactly what is happening in our economic situation. While the government is trying to get its act together on what it should do, we, the American consumers, are taking the only action we know to do when something is hemorrhaging. That is, to compress the wound. It is what we are doing with locking down our spending, sewing our pockets shut on investments, and pushing down hard on anything that seems frivolous or not necessary. And we are very, very afraid to take the pressure off for fear that the spurting will start all over again and we certainly can’t afford to lose any more of anything. So, I would put forward that we are in a Compression and that unless the government comes out and starts talking to each of us on how to manage during these times of uncertainty that we will not take the pressure off and consumer spending will continue to wither. When we said we were in a Recession, the powers to be failed to give us our instructions on how to manage through a Recession. Left to our own devices and thinking we are all only doing what we know and falling back on the little we know on how to manage. I don’t know about you, but I would be glad to see a First-Aid kit as soon as possible because I don’t like this pressured feeling and I wonder what happens if I keep this pressure on like this too long. I seem to remember something about too much pressure too long on a wound that doesn’t want to heal on its own will get worse and worse without blood flow. The similarities are just too frightening for me.