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U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

bloomberg.com

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Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#171

Post by cpursley »

spaceribs wrote: post #147
dudul wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this post is why I get so infuriated when I see all the blue-checkmarks on Twitter, calling people who want to go back to work "Selfish, stupid, idiot, etc". People don't want lockdown to stop because they need to go to their hairdresser, or because they need to go hangout at the pub, or whatever idiotic reason these privilege a-holes put in their tweets. People want to get back to work , because they need money…

blaming "Blue Checkmarks" for the fact that people are being victimized by capitalism during a pandemic makes me sick to my stomach. What a hopeless year this has been.

[flagged]

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#172

Post by kharms »

nimbius wrote: post #98

This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating. My job just cut benefits and hours but we're "essential." Remembe…

You probably know this, but worth saying just in case: you should look into unemployment assistance. I believe that the CARES Act applies in case of reduced employment, and the $600/wk benefit is always given in full.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#173

Post by yessql »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #63
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 things: 1. People keep saying about the market being up recently, but skip the part about it still being down about 10% since the start of the year. 2. S&P is heavily weighted towards the strongest companies. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Google account for 20% of S&P market cap. Most of those companies have been helped by the pandemic, or at least not hurt nearly as bad as smaller companies. 3. The market…

> 1. People keep saying about the market being up recently So, down 10% from the previous bubble. > 2. S&P is heavily weighted towards the strongest companies Good point. Dow is also up almost as much though. > 3. The market is always very forward looking. I may be cynical, but I see perhaps 2 to 3 years to regain the jobs we are losing, to see the employment rate return to earlier levels. That's years of depressed s…

I think the only thing the market has going for it, is that everything else is worse.

Interest rates are negative or near zero, so bonds have the risk of losing value as interest rates rise, as the Fed needs to fight inflation. They also have no real upside, since interest rates are so low.

The Fed has agreed to print unlimited money to prop up businesses that basically don't exist, so having a bunch of cash is not safe, since the Fed is printing so much more of it.

So grossly overvalued stocks may be the best thing now.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#174

Post by MattGaiser »

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #107
nakedshorts wrote: post #33

One year ago, if you had asked me what would happen if we printed $4T+ (that's 20% of GDP for perspective) out of thin air and injected it into the economy, I would've told you massive hyperinflation and immediate collapse of the dollar. Instead, we see the US Dollar Index strengthening over the last 6 months [1]. The dominance of the United States as a global hegemonic superpower truly cannot be overstated; I'm in a…

Printing money hasn't caused inflation since world war 1 and that's because the demand for USD is virtually unlimited. As long as the money printed comes back to the government as taxes, it's not an issue. Else it becomes a deficit. This was already theorized by modern money mechanics and this incident is proving it right

That and how QE is structured limits inflation. If inflation rises, you just put all the assets purchased back on the market.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#175

Post by ghaff »

aphextron wrote: post #145
nimbius wrote: post #98

This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating. My job just cut benefits and hours but we're "essential." Remembe…

> No school means poor kids roam the street like packs of feral dogs asking for money for food around here. I think this is possibly the single biggest long term problem we're going to face as a result of all this. Economic recessions will come and go. But missing 5/8ths of a school year is going to be absolutely devastating for this generation of kids. They will be left permanently behind without a serious concerted…

There was some discussion of aspects of this yesterday and there have been a few articles. The general consensus is that kids who have good home environments and have at least some interest in learning will mostly do fine. Some may even do better than normal.

But kids in poor home situations who were already barely scraping by--if that--will basically lose the year and everything that implies. In some areas, double-digit percentages of students have basically gone incommunicado from their schools.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#176

Post by AQuantized »

lisper wrote: post #97
ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very hard to have currency based inflation especially for USD which is in very high demand.

Have you looked at the Fed's balance sheet lately? It is quite literally off the charts. https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren... It is no harder to inflate the dollar than any other currency. Print enough of them, and the their price will go down. It's no different from any other commodity.

It's definitely much harder to inflate the dollar than any other currency. If there's massive demand for the dollar, that's a huge deflationary effect on the dollar, which counteracts the inflationary effect. In times of crisis, everyone wants to be in the global reserve currency.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#177

Post by mywittyname »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #69
the-dude wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A recession is a clear defined term : 2 successive quarters of a shrinking economy.

You are wrong. The NBER Business Cycle Dating committee explains their criteria and explains why "the two quarter rule" the financial press always talks about is not what they use. https://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html "The committee's procedure for identifying turning points differs from the two-quarter rule in a number of ways. First, we do not identify economic activity solely with real GDP and real GDI, but…

> The Committee does not have a fixed definition of economic activity. It examines and compares the behavior of various measures of broad activity: real GDP measured on the product and income sides, economy-wide employment, and real income. The Committee also may consider indicators that do not cover the entire economy, such as real sales and the Federal Reserve's index of industrial production (IP). The Committee's use of these indicators in conjunction with the broad measures recognizes the issue of double-counting of sectors included in both those indicators and the broad measures. Still, a well-defined peak or trough in real sales or IP might help to determine the overall peak or trough dates, particularly if the economy-wide indicators are in conflict or do not have well-defined peaks or troughs.

The GDP approach is a lot more concrete. The NBER's approach is more nuanced due to evaluating more factors, but is also more hand-wavy.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#178

Post by inscionent »

dudul wrote: post #112
nimbius wrote: post #98

This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating. My job just cut benefits and hours but we're "essential." Remembe…

And this post is why I get so infuriated when I see all the blue-checkmarks on Twitter, calling people who want to go back to work "Selfish, stupid, idiot, etc". People don't want lockdown to stop because they need to go to their hairdresser, or because they need to go hangout at the pub, or whatever idiotic reason these privilege a-holes put in their tweets. People want to get back to work , because they need money…

We can print more money right. Money isn't real. Death and this virus are.

How about we just take care of those who need taking care of during this disaster. How about we put all national efforts to keep the lights on, providing safe housing and keeping the food supply chains intact.

Instead we are worried about corporate quarterly profits and when the Ruby Tuesday can reopen, because somehow serving burgers for $3/hr plus tips is going to secure that person's financial situation.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#179

Post by throwphoton »

newacct583 wrote: post #140
nimbius wrote: post #98

This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating. My job just cut benefits and hours but we're "essential." Remembe…

> Half the country is out of work It is clearly not, otherwise that 4.8% would be a much bigger number. Hyperbole doesn't help here. No one claims things are good. A global pandemic is a disaster any way you cut it. We're all affected, some much more than others, and we all have to help. But there's no magic wand we can wave where we all go back to work, either. Even "essential" industries are affected. Very few peop…

> But we have to work together to fix it

What, concretely, does this mean, especially if creditors are pressuring people to return to work to keep up with their payments, and returning to work is a public and personal health hazard?

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#180

Post by kevingadd »

newacct583 wrote: post #140
nimbius wrote: post #98

This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating. My job just cut benefits and hours but we're "essential." Remembe…

> Half the country is out of work It is clearly not, otherwise that 4.8% would be a much bigger number. Hyperbole doesn't help here. No one claims things are good. A global pandemic is a disaster any way you cut it. We're all affected, some much more than others, and we all have to help. But there's no magic wand we can wave where we all go back to work, either. Even "essential" industries are affected. Very few peop…

The Market does not scale directly off unemployment numbers. Depending on how the GDP is being calculated here, it could be over-valuing certain fields and that would bias the shrinkage in one direction or another - for example, the tech industry is more likely to be able to work from home, so those businesses are still mostly operating, and tech is also a high-profit-low-cost industry that isn't as dependent on having supply chain stuff (like factories and warehouses) as other industries are.

High unemployment in tech or finance would potentially drop GDP much more than high unemployment in low-income fields would, even though low-income workers are often VERY important - nurses on the front lines right now don't bring in big money, neither do people staffing grocery stores or fulfillment warehouses.

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