The definition of recession used by economists is based on GDP. I'll work with whatever number everybody else does, but let's not change the rules in the middle of the game.

One example:

For a short time recently some liberals and media commenters were trying to discount the payroll employment numbers in favor of the household employment numbers. Up until now, the payroll numbers were considered the "gold standard" for employment while household numbers, which were strong during a lot of weak payroll months in the past few years, should be ignored.

Well, not surprisingly, when payroll numbers kept rising steadily, and the household numbers started getting dicey off and on in 2007, a little "goalpost moving" was attempted, and I was hearing about how the household numbers are really more of a true indicator.

Then the BLS published an increase in household numbers in November of almost 700,000 jobs. I'm not hearing much from these people any more.

Now, on growth:

A person today that wants to open a small neighborhood hardware store is facing a losing battle with 2 Home Depots and a Lowes within 5 miles of his area. Even if he finds some new area out in the sticks, he knows it's just a matter of time before he'll be pushed out as the area grows unless he engages in the same game and intends to grow to a warehouse-sized operation.

It's nice to have small neighborhood hardware stores. I try to use the ones around here when I can, but frankly, the larger stores are much more likely to have what I need.

You have to get past the romance of it. "Mom and Pop" stores are nice, but think it through. Those fighting against the big box stores and talking about them driving little stores out of business are often complaining about how few benefits the big box employees have, and how low their salaries are.

Do you know what a "Mom and Pop" store pays? How about benefits? Health care? Pensions? How many union members does a "Mom and Pop" store contain? How much taxes do they pay to the city to support roads, libraries, improvements, and all the rest of the things that towns need?

My parents live in a small town. They mostly shop in a city thirty miles away. The town doesn't have what they need. Should they go without? That's what people did in the old days. Make do. They didn't have a choice. You'd be amazed at the changes in society something like the Sears mail-order catalog made decades ago. Kind of like internet shopping has done today.

Towns that successfully keep out box stores don't increase their business. They just drive people out of town to shop.

My sister-in-law owns an old-fashioned drugstore in a small college town. The local Walgreens was hurting her business, but she's doing better by specializing as a compounding pharmacist.

The free market has the word "free" in it. It means people make choices on their own. Nobody from Wal-Mart is going into towns and breaking the windows of small stores, or threatening them. Nobody lets the air out of the tires of folks who shop at Mom and Pop stores.

People decide on their own where they get the better deals, and where they can find what they want. There's a lot that's appealing about the old days, but keep it realistic.