The United States Economy
The American economy is not doing so hot right now. Economist will declare the country to be in a recession, probably sometime in the next month. This means that gas prices (already approaching $4) will be going up. It also means that the president will be instituting fiscal or monetary policy to try to drive the country from its recession. To sum things up, if the president employs fiscal policy, one of two things will happen or possibly both. Either government spending will be increased and and taxes will be decreased, taxes will be increased and government spending will be decreased, or a combination of the two. If the president decides to use monetary policy to offset the recession, he will be raising or lowering the FFR (federal funds rate). Other things that happen in a recession include the value of the dollar sinks, trade slows, and unemployment goes up. However, things in the economy are not going to stay this way forever. An average recession only lasts about 11 months and the period of low prosperity lasts up to 36 months. So the economy will bounce back.