Retailers and consumers are bracing for Black Friday, the official start of the holiday season, as it looms on the horizon clouded with storm clouds of the recession.
Recall last year, consumer spending was up 7 percent on 2008 Black Friday, but the excitement and the spending eventually fizzled, falling to 3.4 percent increase in overall holiday spending. But can one day be omen for the entire shopping season?

There is a shortage of oil, there is a shortage of jobs, and there is a shortage of consumer spending in this down economy. To that list, add another shortage in the state - telephone numbers.

Mired in the recession, more workers, many victims of layoffs, are rolling the dice and becoming entrepreneurs - the payoff could be a jumpstart for the sluggish economy.
Mukesh Sud, a professor of Entrepreneurship at Fairfield University, considers entrepreneurs the catalysts who will help promote economic recovery. In fact, he points out that small business owners are the backbone of the economy, not the corporate giants that grab most of the attention.
"Small businesses are the drivers of the economy," Sud said. "It's businesses that employ five or ten people that move everything forward. Entrepreneurship is a phenomenon that tends to grow during a recession. Any time is a good time to become an entrepreneur."

Gerald Cavallo, Fairfield University associate professor of Marketing, has 16 grandchildren who will be trick-or-treating this Halloween. He also expects about 80 kids from the neighborhood ringing his doorbell.