Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, the first point to make is that recessions are defined from the point of view of the entire economy - not for a person, not for an individual company, industry or even state. And a recession means that essentially the economy goes into reverse, it produces less. And the standard we use is, it has to produces less for at least six months for there to be an official recession. We have had 11 recessions since World War II. The last recession lasted just under a year. The good news is that recessions have gotten milder in terms of job and income losses. Now the causes of recessions are hotly debated, but they include the economy just running out of steam, the jump in the price of some key input like oil, or a reaction to overspending or over investing in some market, much like the tech sector in the 1990s or residential housing today."