http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RichTucker/2008/01/04/making_cents_of_our_eco...

Making Cents of Our Economy
By Rich Tucker
Friday, January 4, 2008

It's impossible to open a newspaper without being told how awful the
American economy is. Yet it's just as hard to open your eyes without seeing
how outstanding the American economy is.

Consider an AP report from Dec. 4. "Hiring practically stalled in December,
driving the nation's unemployment rate up to a two-year high of 5 percent
and fanning fears of a recession," it begins.

Yawn.

At this point it's probably impossible to count how many warnings of
recession we've endured. Today the threat is rising unemployment. Last month
it was the collapse of subprime mortgages. And in the years before that it
was soaring gas prices, Hurricane Katrina and the Sept. 11 attacks. Through
it all, month after month and year after year, the economy just keeps
growing.

So let's ignore the news for a moment and consider whether we're better off
than we were just, say, a generation ago.