All right, America. It's time to check that hairline. Uncle Sam has been receding a lot this year. The dollar is worth about three quarters to the rest of the world. 75 freaking cents. The housing market is effectively dead in my neck of the woods. Gas costs three dollars a gallon. Our dirty little war is slowly stabilizing at the cost of five billion dollars a week (give or take a few billion). I am going to say the R-word: Recession.

I don't know when it began, but economists have come up with the brilliant strategy of not claiming a recession has occurred until it is already over. How's that for hedging your bets? I am not an economist. I am a cab driver. Part of the people in the service working class, and we know when things are up and down.

On Friday, my last ride of the day was taking a bartender lady to work at a local upscale French restaurant. She had been in the service industry for a while and commented that things were very unpredictable these days. One day would be great and the next exceedingly slow. At Christmas time! That's the time when people spend their money in America regardless of whether they have it or not. Just wait until January.

The cab business has been slower lately as well, with more drivers to boot. I still get the eight-dollar Wal-mart runs, but I'm not even getting the two buck tip these days. On Friday, I had to stop to get change on two separate occasions and still didn't have any small bills at the end of the day. Even the bank teller had to go into a second drawer for fives. This may sound good (nothing but twenties!), but it isn't. It means people don't have any cash on hand. They are going to ATM machines to get more twenties. It was slow on Friday, and still, every passenger paid with a twenty, wanting all the change.

You could blame the housing market boom and bust (I assume someone made money). You could blame sub-prime loans given out to everyone and their dog, but there have been loan-sharks for years. You could blame oil companies, and you would be right. You could blame the War in Iraq, and you would be right. You could blame Mother Nature, and you would be right. Everything we do to ourselves and everything that happens to us adds up to the end sum of plus or minus zero. I think it's been on the minus side lately for America, but I forget to show my work. Spinsters are already debunking my claim as I type.

If you talk to stock people (and really they do all the talking), they say there is no recession. They are looking at the numbers, and they don't see it. They don't see the lack of small bills and tips to the working class. They see the billions of dollars traded every day on the exchange, they look at jobs rates, and they look at their own bloated sense of importance, and they say we will whether the storm.

Of course, we will whether the storm. We always do. I'm saying we are going into serious storm called Recession 2008, and we get to vote about it. You have all the candidates chattering about their faith, their commitment, and their accomplishments. None of them are talking about the economy right now. I guarantee that by the time it comes down to the general election that the economy will be a serious issue. It's still about the economy, stupid.

What does that mean to the regular folks like you and me? Suck it in. Pull up your boot straps. Tighten your belts.

I'm not saying don't tip your waitresses and cab drivers. We need the tiny bills, too. We have to recognize how much more we have to pay for the little things, and maybe hold off on buying those big thousand dollar items. If that makes things tough for billion-dollar international non-taxpaying corporations, so be it. That's who needs to recognize our recession. That's who needs to feel the pressure.

Maybe you see it already, America. Maybe you don't. But it's here. It's recession time blinded by Christmas time. I just wanted to give you a little heads up from a man cruising the streets. It's going to be a cold winter. Grab an extra blanket.

Chris Jungle remembers when the dollar was worth a dollar.