This is CBS, I Am the World.

I'm John Bachelors.

The business of America is small business.

And I welcome the small business columnist for the Guardian newspaper, the UK and US

edition, as well as our hometown newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

We go immediately to a column that Jean Marx has published in The Hill, better than it

looks.

This is a way of talking about an economy that Jean and I have striven to describe these

last months because this is down, but this is not down and this spending looks good and

wears the recession.

Jean, a very good evening to you.

I'm going to ask about a recession.

I'll ask about the hesitation in the markets because of the banks.

Is that indicative to your knowledge of the rest of the economy, including small business?

Or is that some rarefied conversation about international banking?

Good evening to you.

Hi, John.

You know, the markets are the markets and I'm never going to even try to explain the rationale

of the markets, but I did rate a piece in The Hill this week about the overall economy.

And John, you and I talk about the economy all the time.

We're trying to figure out where it's going and you know, is it good?

Is it bad or are you betting towards a recession or not?

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