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Now that some economists are saying our almost 2-year-old recession is over, I think it's time we name it something. You know, like we name hurricanes...Katrina, Andrew...Rita.

Maybe we should even have a national center that names them - like the National Hurricane Center names hurricanes -- we could have a National Recession Center to do the job.

Each year, the center could put out a list of names in alphabetical order. If that year has a recession, we just check a name off that list.

Students reading about economic history would have an easy way to remember the worst recession since the Great Depression. Government leaders, policy makers and businesses would have a ready made reference point to separate all the recessions we've had.

Psychologically, by putting a name on it, maybe it would be easier to box up and leave behind.

Turns out, there may be some value in that.

"(A name) would have a different meaning for each person," said Joann Moran, a cinical psychologist who teaches a class in San Marino with her husband on coping with the financial crisis.

People would rename it to be "less overwelming, where they can frame it in the context of something they have some power over."

And maybe the name could even have some accountability built into it, she said.

Some ideas come to mind.

Howabout Subprime Recession , after institutions that ran wild with adjustable rate and low-documentation loans that led to the housing meltdown, which in turn led to the fall of the financial system?

Howabout Recession Lehman - for the fall of Lehman Bros., the biggest bank failure in history?

Recession Greenspan?

Hmmm.

I don't know. I guess the name depends on who you are talking to.

What we do know is that this is the worst recession since the Great Depression.

That's why a lot of people are calling it the Great Recession, said Jack Kyser, founding economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.

It's not quite a depression, but it's the worst of the recessions, he said.

That works for me. Only one problem...Nothing about 12.7 percent unemployment - over 15 percent in some valley areas - is particularly great...not great at all.

But anything, anything to look back during better times and to give the last two years a name.

It's not so much so that we can remember it. It's more about putting a name on something that has harmed us, so we can beat it back, punch it, beat it and hope to God we learn from it and never see anything like it again.

By the way, if you've got any ideas for a name, feel free to pass them along...just make sure they are something that we can publish in a family paper.

If you're looking for hope in dismal job numbers, here's a trickle of it, mixed in with unsettling numbers:

From the Associated Press:

"There are about 6.1 unemployed workers, on average, competing for each job opening, a Labor Department report shows. That's down slightly from 6.2 last month, the most since the department began tracking job openings nine years ago.
It's a sharp increase from only 1.7 workers per opening when the recession began in December 2007.
The department's Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey said employers advertised about 2.5 million job openings at the end of September, up slightly from the previous month. That's down from a peak of 4.8 million openings in June 2007."

I realize that's not the greatest news. But it's on the right track.

The hope is that businesses will have no choice but to start hiring again, once they've trimmed production and labor to the point that they can't be trimmed any more.

Monrovia-based company AeroVironment announced Wednesday that the government has extended the firm's contract to create a mechanical reconnaissance bird.
That's right ... a bird. Check out the project's early phases:

To the right of the screen, you might see this ad:

"The San Gabriel Valley Small Business Development Center offers classes, counseling and consulting for entrepreneurs and small business owners. The SBDC is a partnership between Mt. San Antonio College and the U.S. Small Business Administration.
The San Gabriel Valley."

They'll have to take that off, as of today. In case you didn't know, the center is closing today because of lack of funding.

http://www.mtsacsbdc.com/web/

Erika Moldenado is one determined business owner.

We caught up recently, eight months after I did a story on her new business.

She told me how she was doing, and the economy's effect on sales. It hasn't been all pretty, but this is one determined business owner.

Back in November, she started Oasis Tropical Fruits & Juices in Whittier.

Faced with the question of how she was going to make a living for her and her young son, she sold her homemade assortments of fruit snacks on the street. She sold to anyone from attorneys to truckers to restaurants.

With some good luck selling, and nudging from her clientele, she opened her fruit bar in November.

Unfortunately, the young, single mother started her business in the thick of the economic downturn.

"It's been a rough seven months," she said. "I'm glad I'm still here. But the way the economy has been...it hasn't been good on sales."

It hasn't been great on neighboring business either. The small plaza her business is in has lost several businesses.

But like I said, she's determined.

She's gone back to selling her fruit on the streets of Whittier again, getting the word out.

On Friday, she'd just returned from selling.

But it was a little slow. Perhaps people weren't interested because they were so immersed in the Michael Jackson news, she thought

As it gets warmer, maybe sells will pick up, she said.

But even if they don't, I got the idea that this business owner is going to keep trying.

"I'm not going to fail," she said. "I'm going to ride this out.... I'm faithful. It's going to be good." 

After nearly 20 years, the San Gabriel Valley Small Business Center is closing on Tuesday, June 30th.

Workshops and counseling will no longer take place at the center, and its website will be taken down in July.

It's a sad victim of the economy -- as Mt. San Antonio College and other local sources -- plagued by their own finance issues --  could no longer support it.

http://www.mtsacsbdc.com/web/

If you're interested in an early version what various cities wanted from $787 billion in federal stimulus money, try out this site: http://www.stimuluswatch.org/

But a quick word of caution. Pasadena, for instance, is not going to get more than $88 million in federal money for its wish list of stimulus projects. What you'll see are early versions of what cities wanted late last year, before President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. 

MARTIN CRUTSINGER
AP Economics Writer

It would be so easy to shrivel up, stay at home and stare at a computer all day, after losing your job.

But I saw something different this week: courage.

I went to a couple of job networking mixers, and a job fair -- all in all seeing hundreds of people looking for work in this crappy economy.

Desperation was in the air. People who are wondering how to feed their families.

But people weren't sitting still...there was the mom who after 17 years in accounting was standing in a crowd of hundreds at her first job fair. There was the 22-year-old trying to go to school because she's not sure her probationary job will last. And then there was the warehouse worker -- who just wanted any job -- and the underemployed Disneyland employee who was just looking for anything to make up for his cut hours.

"I need to feed my family," he said. 

They were facing the worst economic debacle of our time with grit, humility, ideas and focus.

What I got out of the job fair was not a sense that the more than 3,000 that were there were actually going to get a job. Most probably wouldn't from the fair. But rather, it was just like one big support group. Even though they were competing for jobs, there was also a sense that we're all in this together.

I know that's probably corny. But don't tell that to Edwin Duterte. Unemployed for more than a year, the former commercial real estate lender, started Pinkslip Mixers for unemployed professionals to look for job leads.

His hope? That people's self interest will work for everybody else's interest. That companies, businesses, volunteers will all pitch in to help a community of jobless people find work -- because we're all so connected.  

Using online tools, social networking and his skills, he's got a movement going -- and growing. And he doesn't want a penny for it.

To me, that's courage -- courage to keep moving, and make something -- anything -- happen for his life -- and others.

I wish I could have that courage.

I got the sense from Dutarte that after years in the corporate sector, he was ready for a new kind of marketplace -- one where ideas and altruism rule out over greed.

In the end, he was just rying to do his part to do something good, even in the midst of his joblessness.

It's better than just letting everybody look out for themselves. Better to help eachother get jobs than to hurt eachother when those jobs are scarce, he said.