In the U.S.A. there is talk that perhaps the economy is already in a recession, with some reportedly large number of respondents in some survey apparently feeling that was the case. Now, it's not the point of this particular article to take on the numbers of those headline articles, to dispute the idiocy of the methodoligy of the survey and things like that. I'll just say again that anyone foolish enough to take the word of the media in the U.S.A. as gospel just proves what a fool they are truly are. Never believe the crap that they feed you, and always look deeper for reasons why they are feeding you that crap. And, of course, always follow the money and see who will profit and/or who will lose based on the various outcomes to determine what is really impacting the news.
Anyway, the point of this particular article is that I know of at least one segment of business in this country that is apparently far from hurting and seems to be doing quite well. What segment is that? That would be the telephone soliticitation/telemarketing business.
Whoever provides the phone numbers to the various telemarketers must be making a fortune selling those numbers to the various companies that just can't wait to try to sell you on the services of the companies they are representing when they call you. Besides those people profiting from the sale on customer information, there are of course the various telemarketing sharks that seem to feed each other numbers for potential victims, uh, suckers.
How do I know this is happening so much? Well, until recently I had a phone number that was firmly planted on the national (U.S.) do not call list. I put my family's phone number on that list ages ago and had forgotten how blissfully peaceful it had made things when it came to the telephone in our home. Just a few weeks ago now, I switched the phone service in our home back to Verizon and in doing so ironically enough got back the phone number my family had about 3 years ago. The only problem is that in addition to getting back that phone number, we've now also gotten back the telemarketing calls as the process of getting the number published on the do not call registry takes a few weeks to work it's magic and get these infernal calls to stop.
I could have lumped this article into the politic forums and category here at JoeUser.com as it would seem that reality of the situation is that the do not call list/registry process was a somewhat bogus idea from the start. Personally I would much rather have seen an opt-in method used for customers that would accept telemarketing calls versus an opt-out method (which we have now) that calls for customers to request that telemarketers not call them and then makes those customers wait until the lists have been populated, updated, and distributed out there for telemarketers to work on avoiding. If the politicians and bureaucrats that implemented the do not call registry had been smart, they'd have gone with a default opt-out method, and put the extra effort of opting in on those few potential customers that like getting these stupid telemarketing calls.
Oddly enough, these calls, with their somewhat annoying frequency and timing, have me thinking it was a mistake to assist my in-laws in getting their number on the do not call list. At this point my father-in-law would probably love to get cheery phone calls from telemarketers trying to sell him something. Since he's mostly a shut-in and doesn't get out often, he gets terribly lonely (despite any time spent there by myself, my wife, or others) so having him get telemarketing calls might be therapeutic for him (and would be poetic justice towards the telemarketers as he asks them to repeat themselves multiple times, asks them about the weather or some other information about life outside his home, etc.)
{ Actually to digress a bit further, the issues with my father-in-law do make me think that having some sort of business available that would call shut-ins on a regular basis and offer them someone to talk to regularly might not be a bad business to have going. At least some sort of reputable business, where relatives paid the business a small fee to make friendly calls to their relatives, keep them company over the phone, etc. Sort of like a 976 chat line for geezers where younger relatives paid the freight 
}
Anyway, the telemarketing business in the U.S.A. definitely seems to be alive and well, and that doesn't include at all any calls from any of the political machines that are ramping up for the coming primary elections across the country. If those get added into the mix, the fiber optic cables to my home could wind up being melted down from over-use and abuse.
