Expansion is a relative concept which implies a reference and can only occur relative to an assumed dimensional time-invariate. Expansion is not an absolute intrinsic property of an entity any more than curvature or magnitude. Consider evaluating the assertion ...the balloon is expanding... Once we have mutually agreed which entity is being pointed to and that it is indeed a balloon, then we can proceed to determine whether or not it is expanding. Something, like the belt around the guts of the balloon, must not be elastic. Expansion can only be verified convincingly by comparison measurements. A length dimension of the balloon must be compared over time with a standard invariate length. Measure the length now and record the result. Measure the length later and record the result. If an increase in length has occurred then expansion of the balloon is confirmed. With a standard length outside of a small balloon determining the expansion or not of the balloon is usually straightforward. From the inside of the balloon with all the standard rulers expanding, and our clever doppler radar machine expanding, and our own brains and bodies expanding, and our information transmission medium light expanding, and even our inflated cosmological theories expanding, the only way we can possibly ever know if the balloon was expanding or not will be to phone someone on the outside. But our outside contacts are notoriously unreliable...as most deities seem to leave the answer phone on permanently. Such a contact may be of no use anyway because they might think our balloon was unchanging and the rest of their entire universe was shrinking. Which could quite probably be a good thing. If everything in the cosmos is expanding without exception, you, me, apples, rulers, light diffraction gratings, clocks, stars, the space between stars, atoms, the space between atoms, there would be no means of verifying the situation and the exercise is nothing more than a perverse irrelevance.

Since almost everything we observe is either increasing or decreasing, it should not come as a surprise if evidence confirms that we are in a region of the universe which is expanding. To suppose the entire universe is expanding is no more inspired than previous human cultures who described the entire universe in terms of their local conditions.

As is usually the case, the speculations about the expansion of the cosmos are distended primarily by dollars pumped into cosmologists bank accounts. Once the economy stops expanding and the discretionary funding dries up, the expansion of the universe will slow to quite imperceptible levels.