Hear: The Pain of No Spending

NPR | By Laura Conaway

Published October 16, 2008 at 5:50 PM EDT

Today on Planet Money:

The Dow is up. The TED Spread is down. So are inflation and consumer spending. All that together spells: trouble.

-- Listener Leah Hyman wants to know what it's like to live in a recession.

-- Americans are cutting way back on spending, says Amir Sufi. It's only natural, but it's not fun.

-- Partha Mohanram, an expert in the mystic art of the balance sheet, takes a look at one through Edgar.

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