Recession not over

You hear so much lately about how the recession is over, but one only has to look at the number of bankruptcies being filed to see that this is far from over. Looking at the statistics for the Bankruptcy court for the Middle District of Florida, we can see a trend. In August of each year since 2006, the bankruptcy filings for the year were:
2006 August filings to date: 9,547
2007 August filings to date: 16,263
2008 August filings to date: 26,723
2009 August filings to date: 40,536
2010 August filings to date: 45,600

As long as people are still going bankrupt and are still out of work, they will not have any money to spend. As long as they have no money to spend, there can be no recovery. Bankruptcy filings are still increasing, and even though 2009 was a record year for bankruptcy filings, 2010 is 10 percent higher than that.

The only year that came close to last year's record pace was 2005, when many people rushed to file bankruptcy in order to beat the effective date of the bankruptcy reform laws that the Republicans made law that year.