By Chuck Fried

Chuckenomics 101

Yes America, the Great Recession is at an end.  Sorry, while I do have a degree in finance, I won’t claim to be an economics guru, so let’s call my field of expertise “Chuckenomics.”  The study of reality, as I see it, through my own version of Steve Jobs’ oft quoted ‘reality distortion field’ if you will.

Yes, I work in the IT consulting field, and thus have a tremendous amount of exposure to job seekers and hiring managers. That certainly colors my view.  However, I also travel a bit for work and even manage to get in some vacation time now and then.

Recently, my wife and I took some of our kids to Orlando, where we spent one day in Disney World and one day at Universal Studios.  Unless I miss my guess, these trips were a pretty good indicator of some significant improvements in the economy.

Remember now, I’m admitting to a biased point of view here and not claiming any scientific accuracy by a long shot, but it was pretty clear to us that people were not only jamming those parks, but also spending mad money on everything from $35 Harry Potter wands (can you say $.99 molded Chinese plastic), and $4 Butter Beer (can you say overly sugared cream soda), to $30 Mouse ears (see earlier comment on molded Chinese plastic).

Lines? Really. How about more than an hour wait for Space Mountain and another hour wait to get a table to buy overpriced, under prepared food, and so on.

We had a good chance to discuss this with the kids, as well as with my mother in law who was a real trooper and tagged along, and we all came to the same conclusion: Someone’s got money to spend if they come to Disney and Universal. It’s not a cheap trip.

Thus America, this concludes today’s lesson in Chuckenomics 101.  Any questions?