I heard on the news this morning that Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping was up from last year.  Estimates were something like 15-18% up from last year.  Does that mean the economy is recovering?  I remember was back when I was in high school (hey, not too long ago.  We haven't had out 20-year reunion yet!) I was in an economics class and we were learning about the last recession in the 80s.  My teacher told us about how President Reagan lied to the public and gave a speech on how the recession was over, which caused consumer confidence to rise, so people went out and spent money, so that spurred the economy to recover faster.  Now is that true? In college I learned that it was somewhat true, but what I've taken away from that particular lessons, all these years later, is that the economy won't grow or recover unless there's money put into it.  While I didn't get up and go shopping at midnight (or at all) on Friday, we managed to our share of holiday shopping.  I think Black Friday is blending in to Gray Weekend (trademark pending- don't steal my catch phrase!), so with all the great deals out there, how could you not buy those things you were going to buy anyway but are now not only on sale but have free shipping?  So how much did you do to help the economy this past weekend?