Remember the recession? Whew. That was terrible. Thank god that we're now more than two years into America's technical economic "recovery." How are you celebrating the recovery? Wait, don't tell me. I bet I can guess.

Is it...by watching your economic condition continue to decline as if the "recovery" had never even happened? I knew it! The WSJ reports:

One benchmark, income of the median household-meaning the one in the very middle of the middle-declined 3.2% to $53,518 during the 2007-2009 recession and fell a further 6.7% to $49,909 between June 2009 and June 2011, according to an analysis of monthly Census Bureau numbers.

It's actually much worse than that! In this new version of "economic recovery," the economy doesn't create enough new jobs to employ all the new people entering the work force each month; 20% of home mortgages are underwater, with no prospect for a housing market comeback; college graduates have more student debt than ever, along with poor employment prospects; and the European debt crisis will probably fuck us all in 2012, as well. The average American will either try to scrape together loan payment by selling homemade arts and crafts, or sell off their actual established business in order to open a food truck. If things go poorly, they can always eat the truck.

You could also try selling used cars to poor people, then repossessing those cars. That field is flourishing.

But with everyone suffering, who's really flourishing? Even a hot shot corporate job is no guarantee of lifetime stability any more. The truth is, there are no people with money any more. Only corporations have money now. And they have plenty! But... no, you can't have any. Sorry. They better hold onto it.

Just in case we're hit with another recovery.

[Photo via Michael Cornelius/Flickr]