long time coming

Apparently, the economic troubles in the US have been with us longer and deeper than many of us had suspected as the National Bureau of Economic Research announced its finding that the US economy has been contracting going back to December, 2007.  There are different definitions of a "recession", the most common being two consecutive quarters of negative growth (that's spin for declines), and the Bureau has a somewhat different definition but that's beside the point.

The upshot of it all is the US economy has been struggling over a year.  There is no word on when the troubles will end and really, isn't that the more relevant question?