is recession catching us slowly but surely?

A couple of days back, one of my patients came to me for taking treatment for his cold. After my consultation, he asked me,"How's Ur work going?" Little amused by his question, I asked him to elaborate on his quest. He told me that as everyone is very much considerate about the recent economic slowdown, he just wanted to check whether our medical profession is also facing such problems. I explained him that as ours is an essential service, it gets less affected by the slowdown. Then he told me that he is working in an event-management company & they are now face to face with the hazards of economic slowdown. The work has reduced like anything in this sector & they may consider job cut-off anytime. He was very much stressed by this fact & was considering to change the job or may start doing some additional work to meet his ends.This incidence led me to think if this may b the start of the ill-effects of recession. Though I'm not good at economics by any means but psychological aspects of economy I looked at & believe that the effects of recession becomes apparent in stages.Firstly,it wipes out the surplus money of affluent.In second stage non-essential services like event management,marketing& entertainment sector gets affected.Than it starts catching up the consumer sections & now middle class gets the punch of the slowdown.& when every1 resorts 2 cost-cutting & lay-offs, this is the time when the poor class gets affected by the slowdown. When this happens, this becomes the worst form of recession.People literally will fight for the basic necessities.Then not only economic but social system will also breakdown.I can see that v r now in the second phase of the recession.People seem to restrict expenses in marketing & recreation.I hope everything turns well before it creeps to the last phase. But right now, as an individual we can take some steps for our safety on terms of avoiding erratic spending & revert to the orthodox style of "save for Ur future" mentality.