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

"I think they are, and I think they're saying, 'Yes, it does appear as if the economy is in a recession.' And let me defend economists and their reluctance, perhaps, to just say, 'Yes, we're in a recession.' Because it is a big deal; it is a big deal in the economy. Recessions only come about once every seven or eight years. There's a lot of psychological implication, I think, of saying that we're in a recession. And economists are careful and cautious, and also we want to wait until we have all the information, the data at hand, to be able to say, 'Yes, indeed, the economy is falling into a recession.' Well, I think we do have enough data now, and although the official word has not been put out - there is a group of economists who are charged officially with saying, yes, a recession started here and ended there - but I think there's enough indication with the job market declining and with manufacturing production going down, with problems in the financial services sector, that when all this information is put through the economic hopper and sifted through that the result will be that, yes, we're in a recession. My guess is the recession will be dated as starting sometime late in 2007 - maybe October, November - which means that we're now a year into the recession. How long will it last? No one knows for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised to see another nine or 12 months of a recession. If that's the case, if this recession turns out to be almost 2 years, it will be one of the longest post World War II recessions on record."