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U.S. economy just had a 2nd quarter of negative growth. Is it in a recession?

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Re: U.S. economy just had a 2nd quarter of negative growth. Is it in a recession?

#31

Post by hef19898 »

happiness_idx wrote: post #3
theandrewbailey wrote: post #2

Reverse Betteridge's law: Yes, this is a recession. You might not think it's a recession, and you might hate the word, but the conditions have been met. I'm not going to shed any tears on behalf of anyone near the top, they're going to be fine. Despite their high positions, they won't have a fall, unlike those already at the bottom.

those already at the bottom are at the bottom, the middle class will suffer. Thus leading to a widening of the gap in wealth inequality. You will own nothing and be happy.

Well, the bottom is a not so solid cover over a, for all practically purposes, bottomless hole.

Re: U.S. economy just had a 2nd quarter of negative growth. Is it in a recession?

#32

Post by krageon »

VikingCoder wrote: post #18
Bubble_Pop_22 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With unemployment at 3.5% and dropping and hiring still going strong, wages rising faster than at any point in most of our lives, I'm personally not worried about what will hopefully be light and necessary recession, even if the "2 quarters of negative GDP growth" is a bunk line, cooling off the economy until the global supply chains can resolve is obviously the only solution to inflation. The best way to fool your…

> The sad reality is that we are not using any new or novel products/services compared to 5 years ago. If you exclude the mRNA vaccines the pipeline of innovation is also empty. I'm sorry, but do you expect us to take this comment seriously? This is frankly absurd.

Genuinely except for that and the steady progress of new deep learning results nobody can verify because only the gods' own technological children possess enough mana to try it, I struggle to think of progress in the past five years. I certainly have seen a lot happen, mostly everything sliding into a sewer overflowing already with shit.

Re: U.S. economy just had a 2nd quarter of negative growth. Is it in a recession?

#33

Post by mc32 »

The economy is such a shitshow of a political football that it’s starting to look like a “tulip” republic where you define your way out of tough spots and ever so forcefully avoid mention of the bad thing that would “influence” voters. I think it's a mistake, like it was a mistake to call inflation transitory.

It’s easy. Own up and start working toward solutions instead of sweeping things under the rug and worrying about non-essential politics. People are not that stupid.

Re: U.S. economy just had a 2nd quarter of negative growth. Is it in a recession?

#34

Post by game-of-throws »

TheBlight wrote: post #4

Words will only have the meanings the Party assigns.

I just hope the US Ministry of Truth doesn't come after me for calling it a recession anyhow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation_Governance_Boar...

Re: U.S. economy just had a 2nd quarter of negative growth. Is it in a recession?

#36

Post by Cyberdog »

criley2 wrote: post #13
theandrewbailey wrote: post #2

Reverse Betteridge's law: Yes, this is a recession. You might not think it's a recession, and you might hate the word, but the conditions have been met. I'm not going to shed any tears on behalf of anyone near the top, they're going to be fine. Despite their high positions, they won't have a fall, unlike those already at the bottom.

"The conditions have been met" refers to the colloquial definition of a recession as 2 quarters of GDP contraction, which is not a technical measure, not respected or entertained by economists, not used by policy-makers, etc. It's like saying my camera is better than yours because mine is 40 megapixels. The experts know that this comparison is wrong, but for the lay person, it's easy and quick to use it. Regardless,…

Well, yes, officer, I understand that you clocked me going 20 miles per hour over the speed limit, and that has historically matched the colloquial definition of "speeding," but if you consider other factors…

Come on. This is flagrantly the same level of truth-adjustment that the Trump administration was accused of doing.

Re: U.S. economy just had a 2nd quarter of negative growth. Is it in a recession?

#37

Post by VikingCoder »

krageon wrote: post #32
VikingCoder wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The sad reality is that we are not using any new or novel products/services compared to 5 years ago. If you exclude the mRNA vaccines the pipeline of innovation is also empty. I'm sorry, but do you expect us to take this comment seriously? This is frankly absurd.

Genuinely except for that and the steady progress of new deep learning results nobody can verify because only the gods' own technological children possess enough mana to try it, I struggle to think of progress in the past five years. I certainly have seen a lot happen, mostly everything sliding into a sewer overflowing already with shit.

"Deep Learning results nobody can verify"

What? Deep Learning is measurably out-performing previous algorithms, and making falsifiable predictions.

And if you read HN and can't think of progress in the last five years, then you must be incredibly cynical.

Re: U.S. economy just had a 2nd quarter of negative growth. Is it in a recession?

#38

Post by bumby »

jaywalk wrote: post #12

The hoops that they have to jump through to try and prove that it's not a recession basically prove that it is. "But this team of eight economists hasn't voted to say it's a recession!" Great, can they tell that to my bank account? It seems to show the opposite.

But by that same logic, 2020 was a boon year for most Americans. The average savings rate went higher than it's been in a long time.[1] That doesn't mean the economy was in good shape.

Point being, there isn't a simple metric to measure something as complex as a national (let alone global) economy.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/246234/personal-savings-...

Re: U.S. economy just had a 2nd quarter of negative growth. Is it in a recession?

#39

Post by VHRanger »

beckingz wrote: post #35

2 quarters of negative growth is how recessions are defined. Another point of evidence suggesting that the answer to every news article with a question mark in the title is "duh"

That's a close proxy, but the realist definition is "whatever is on this page" :

https://www.nber.org/research/business-cycle-dating

Re: U.S. economy just had a 2nd quarter of negative growth. Is it in a recession?

#40

Post by mc32 »

asdajksah2123 wrote: post #30
synergyS wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hahah hilarous - just change the definition and problem solved :)

I mean, the problem wouldn't be any different if growth was 0.1 instead of -0.1, so it wouldn't be a definitional recession. So the problem would still have existed whether the term "recession" applies or not. The emphasis on whether or not we are in a "recession" was always completely misplaced. The reality is that whether we saw negative growth or not, GDP is clearly contracting. Which is not a surprise. And not on…

By that logic the 1970s recession was not a recession since it was caused by OPEC's precursor.
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