Brian O'Connor

Recession ends, but not here

So where were YOU when the recession ended: out of a job, out on the street or going out of your mind about your retirement?

The news Thursday was that the U.S. economy had grown for the first time in a year -- officially ending the longest downturn since the Great Depression. I turned on the TV expecting confetti and streamers in Times Square with crowds cheering over pealing church bells.

Nothing. Not even a sailor kissing a nurse.

The Dow Jones average, however, was thrilled. The blue chip index climbed 203 points, almost back above the 10,000 mark. If anyone's popping a cork, it's probably Wall Street investment bankers -- the ones who birthed the crisis with their predatory loans and financial recklessness.

Recovery just beginning

Dana Johnson, chief economist for Comerica (which never dealt in subprime mortgages), rang in the recession's end at lunch with Elizabeth Acton, the bank's chief financial officer.

Johnson saved the date, knowing a technical end to the recession would come when the Commerce Department announced the July through September rates for U.S. gross domestic product.

"I called her a few months ago and said, 'I have to take you to lunch when the recession ends,' " Johnson said.

But the end of the recession doesn't mean the end of economic pain.

More people will lose their jobs, with the U.S. unemployment rate expected to top 10 percent next year.

In Michigan, analysts say a 17 percent jobless rate is on the way. And a peak number of homeowners are expected to lose their homes in 2010.

"The recovery is just beginning after a very steep decline," Johnson said.

"There are lots of parts of the economy that still aren't recovering at all. But it's the real deal and it's going to continue."

But not in Michigan. While the rest of the country stumbles back from the bursting of the mortgage bubble, Michigan remains trapped in the wreckage of the auto crash.

No replacing lost jobs

The state lost 500,000 manufacturing jobs since the end of the '90s, and will be lucky to get even 10 percent of them back, analysts say. The state won't get back to its 1999 level of employment -- ever.

"Everybody breathed a sigh of relief with the bailouts but this restructuring in the auto industry is not done," said Don Grimes of the University of Michigan's Institute for Research on Labor, Employment and the Economy. "It's going to be a tough slog."

He added: "This is going to be a permanently poorer state."

The glimmer of hope for the Great Lakes State is that our one-state recession goes back to being only a made-in-Michigan event.

The Congressional Budget Office says employment won't return to pre-recession levels until 2014, but as the rest of the country climbs out of the hole, Michigan will get some boost as consumers start buying a few more Fords, Chevys and Fiats, along with Whirlpool washers and Domino's pizzas.

So where were we when the recession ended? Still at the wrong end of the rainbow.

boconnor@detnews.com (313) 222-2145