In my Dec. 2, 2011 column, I declared that the Northern Colorado economy was growing again. The graphic that accompanied the column showed that our economy bottomed out in the summer of 2010. My Index of Economic Growth, published in the Jan. 13 issue of the Business Report showed this same bottom but also showed that the trend line bottomed at the end of 2009. Our economy has been growing for two years now.

Recent prognostications are almost unanimous that our economy will continue to grow, although at a slow to moderate pace. I'm currently in the moderate-or-greater-growth camp but check back for my quarterly update in the March 23 issue of the Business Report.

There is no doubt that the U.S. recovery will be long and slow. That is obvious by looking at the graphic here of total credit market debt as a percent of GDP. Total credit market debt includes both private and public debt. The graph goes back to 1952 but a graph going back to 1925 can be found at http://comstockfunds.com/files/NLPP00000%5C292.pdf. The ratio was about 160 in the 1920s, increased to 260 in the Great Recession and dropped to about 130 by 1952. That was the low, at