Recessions are just about the worst thing that can happen to a whiner, but for closers recessions are business as usual. In fact, for closers times like these can be the best of times.

This especially true in small businesses and proprietorships, where turning on a dime is an everyday occurrence. And it's why small businesses, entrepreneurs, lead the way out of times like these.

You see, closers know that selling is a two sided affair. Closers have a knack for sniffing out the deal. but here's the catch: The deal they sniff out today may not be a perfect fit for buyer and seller.

Closers understand that potential sales exist all along the continuum that exists between what's for sale and what buyers are looking for. Sure, when a buyer wants exactly what a seller has for sale the deal is done. But closers know those deals are easy to make. Anyone can close those deals. In fact all that's required is an introduction, and there is little value in providing an introduction.

It happens every day to someone, actually to a whole bunch of someones. But it might only happen once in any one particular individual's lifetime. Today is one of those days for a very good friend of mine.

My friend happens to run a small chain of automobile repair shops. For years and years one of his chief complaints has been the impossibility of competing with the auto dealers for repair work. Despite investing heavily in all the latest computer diagnostic technology and hiring the best mechanics trained by the auto makers themselves, customers have been hard to get. The perception is that his service can't be as good as that which the dealers offer.

Well today his service is not only as good (better, in all probability) as that which the dealers offer, it's also available. As the list of who stays and who goes among auto dealerships becomes known it will become clear that many customers have fewer choices for where to have their cars serviced. As they search for and eventually find the highest quality and most reputable service providers my friend's business will prosper.

I told him this is his once in a lifetime opportunity.

Lately I've encounterd a much greater than usual number of whiners. So many people I know and many I don't have lost their jobs. Some of the luckier whiners still have their jobs, but they're whining about pay cuts and longer hours. The luckiest whiners I know still have a job but whine about not getting a raise or a bonus.

Times are tough, but really, what's the point of whining about it? Wouldn't it be better to put that energy into looking for a job instead? Or how about using it to learn a new skill to sell on the open market?

Having an income, any income at all, that you yourself earned brings pride and a sense of accomplishment. All the whining in the world can't replace that.

A colleague and good friend of mine is about to embark on a new career. His timing probably could not be worse; but then he didn't get to choose. The company he works for is restructuring itself and people at his level and above in his company have fewer options than most.

His options are limited to finding a position which is at or above his current level. His company has a policy that displaced managers cannot take positions lower than their current management level. In times like these many solid performers are finding themselves unemployed with few prospects for directly replacing lost income.

In good times people are in demand. For good people this is especially true. When times are not so good - and they certainly aren't these days - people are cheap and easy to come by. Top talent is cheap, especially if it is desperate for work and the income that comes with it.

In my view, this is the risk you take on by not being a 100% fit for the job you're doing.

Are you scratching your head trying to figure out where this market is headed? Or maybe better put, why it's headed up now, when all indications are it should be bouncing along going nowhere or trending down?

Me too, but I have a theory for why it's headed the other way. I can't help but wonder if the fuel behind this rally is the lack of fuel for another crisis.

Can you think of any classes of investment that could be taken behind the woodshed? That's what happened in 1987, with stocks in general. It happened again in 2000 with internet stocks. This one was precipitated from real estate and debt speculation. What's left?

Could all this be happening simply because there are no other misbehaving investment classes? (At least none that we know of.) Maybe so. If true, then it's safe to say confidence in the system, in the economy in general, and the economy's ability to recover from a strong shock in particular is building.

But it won't build forever, not all by itself. The real question therefore becomes: Will these gains prove sustainable? Will the up trend last long enough for some glimmer of hope of recovery to materialize?

So let me see if I got this right.

We don't like the cars produced by our own country's automotive manufacturers. We don't like them to the extent their very existence is in doubt, such is demand.

But we also think our country needs an automotive industry. We therefore believe we must act to save them, to keep them from going out of business.

How to do that? Well, there are a number of ways:

Over the past week I've had a number of conversations with friends and clients about business where they work and live. Call it a random sample. The only non-random aspect about this little informal survey is that they all know me. None of them know each other, so unless I'm the common thread that somehow guides the way economic conditions affect their businesses...

You get the idea.

Here are my findings:

Four conversations so far today. The phone rings, chatter in email, instant messages...

We're off the bottom. The market's turning around. Time to buy. Everyone checking with everyone else to see if we're all thinking the same way. We're not.

Too good to be true? It is. This thing will turn around when nobody's interested in picking up the phone to chat about a possible market bottom. When nobody cares, it's time to invest again. Until then it's all a feint.

In case you somehow missed it, we just had another round of bailouts for the largest banks and insurance companies. Many question this decision. Why bail out these banks and insurance companies who made all the bad loans and investments in the first place, goes the argument. Let them fail. The scavengers will pick up what's left and we'll go from there.

Sounds easy enough, doesn't it? The problem is that last part. The part where we "go from there".

In every conversation I have these days people worry about their investments and the markets. The economy's killing my investments. My portfolio's down. This economy had better turn around soon or my retirement will never happen. There are many variations on that theme. You've probably been hearing it too. You may even have a version you've been using yourself. It's easy to worry.

Things are tough all over. Nobody's immune. If you've lost money (and you no-doubt have) you're neither alone in your losses nor in your quest to determine when things will turn around.

As for that quest, I can tell you this: Things won't turn around soon. We're on a staircase heading downward and we'll be on it for quite a while. We'll have bad days with big drops in all the indexes and they'll be answered only by moderately good days with gains that don't make up. Mixed in among these will be maddening go-nowhere days where money churns from sector to sector in a quest for value.