Recently, phrases like “recession” and “economic downfall” are becoming more and more frequent in everyday conversation, but what do they really mean? This a question I find myself asking all the time, and I’ve yet to find the answer. Sure, I know the dictionary definitions of those words, but I don’t know what they really mean. I know that, because of the recession, I am limited in what I can do and buy. I can no longer go to the movies on the weekends (the price of tickets has sky-rocketed), or buy that cool new shirt I saw at Hot Topic. I know that a lot of people are losing their jobs. I know how scared my parents and grandparents are. But what I want to know is, how did this happen? How did we accumulate such a massive debt? My history teacher told me that it was due to the crash of the stock market. My mom told me that it was related to the war in Iraq…but I want real answers. I want to know how this all started, and what I can do to help.

Our new President Obama has fabricated a new plan to create tax cuts for individuals and some businesses and create jobs for some 3 million Americans. In theory, this plan should work. My history teacher once told me about “trickle-down economics,”an idea where big businesses get tax cuts or other benefits with the hopes that they would indirectly benefit the broad population.

I don’t know whether or not Obama’s plan is going to work, but, as I said, in theory it should. I hope that those highly paid politicians can pull us out of the recession that it seems like they pushed us into.