Economy - loans, banks, & personal responsibility.

Right now the conventional media claims we're in a recession based on people's fears, less than stellar growth, and the housing market collapse. I find it crazy that people buy into anything wholesale the media feeds them these days with so many resources at our fingertips. The first lie is that we are not in a recession. In order for our economy to be in a recession, we must have two consecutive quarters with a decline in our GDP. The US GDP has been hasn't had a declining quarter since GWB took office in 2000. As for people's fears, I believe it's largely attributed to the nightly news trumpeting any negative number that paints a dire picture for the US since it would instill fear in the masses and continued viewing (my layperson's psychology take). Now one reason people may be freaking out is because of all the recent crazy stuff in the housing market. I find fault on both side of the issue since it was stupid banks making bad loans to stupid people who were either too dumb to understand the terms or knew they couldn't pay and just didn't care about their financial health. I'm disappointed in the number of bailouts for the large institutions and individuals because I think that both sides should be forced to own up to their responsibilities. Make the big lenders eat their losses and let the folks who signed up for the crazy loans have their bad credit follow them until they pay it off. It really disgusts me since when my wife and I purchased our house, we chose a sensible loan and took responsibility for its payment. I don't expect anyone to bail me out if I lose my job and neither should anyone else. Ugh.