111–120 of 509 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Employment is higher than it was before Covid and unemployment is down at around the same level. To put it in terms of your metaphor, the bank has given you back $10.10 or so for your $10.
Except it isn't actually higher. https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/269959/employment-in-the...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In other words, if it looks like a recession and quacks like a recession then it might be a recession. And yes it much more complicated - especially it also depends on how much outside pressure NEBR has. I think there is a large pressure not to declare recession since we still have a high inflation and feds needs to continue raising rates.
the reason for the weirdness is that it doesn’t look like a recession in the labor market. Layoffs have been almost exclusively limited to tech, and within tech pre-profit or highly speculative (cryptoshovels) companies. This is important because in the US economic system labor power drives income drives inflation. (This isn’t true in all countries.) When the employment outlook changes, and I expect it will, we will…
The way that the White House, and by extension the administrative branch of the government has decided to redefine "recession" and imply that the economy is doing really well right now is actually scary. These people do have huge levers that control our lives that they can pull. Their actions do have massive effects on the American economy, and by extension the economy of the rest of the world. The actions they're ta…
No group of people, Republican or Democrat, can stop the perpetual cycles of human history. At best, we can only delay the inevitable.
But we can stop lying about the definition of a recession. Biden admin changing the definition to avoid loss political points is about as nonsensical as blaming inflation squarely on Putin. The disinformation needs to stop.
> Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 0.9 percent in the second quarter of 2022 (table 1), according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP decreased 1.6 percent. That makes two back-to-back quarters of real GDP contraction. To some, this is a recession, but it's the NBER that puts the stamp on it. AFAIK, NBER has never failed…
> To some, this is a recession Not "to some", two back-to-back negative GDP stats has been the definition of a recession for my entire life. Now suddenly it's questionable, because the current administration would like to shrug away its failures, and too many in the media are helping them do it. This ad-hoc re-definition of language to suit political purposes is scary and Orwellian.
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Not so much. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/17/business/dealbook/inflati...
Austen Goolsbee? He was part of the Biden campaign and not a CEO. He seems like a good guy, but he’s a hack. Most of the executives quoted said inflation was an issue, but that they thought they would be able to raise prices to match (ie we’re going to do our part to make it persistent). Edit: A very important article. Basically the academic center-left consensus was 100% wrong, and everyone else was right.
>“Will inflation be transitory? There are many reasons that the peaks we’ll see at the moment will be. But what’s the longer-term trend? That, I think, everyone will be keenly watching. We think the jury is out.” — Jane Fraser, chief executive of Citigroup
The way that the White House, and by extension the administrative branch of the government has decided to redefine "recession" and imply that the economy is doing really well right now is actually scary. These people do have huge levers that control our lives that they can pull. Their actions do have massive effects on the American economy, and by extension the economy of the rest of the world. The actions they're ta…
Direct actions like what? U.S. crude production is near all-time highs. Gas is expensive because ridiculous Americans will pay it and the oil companies figured that out. Shell just announced a $12 billion quarterly profit. The only thing I want to see out of Biden on gas prices is a windfall tax on oil companies where the funds are dedicated to lithium exploration.
Imagine you're a company which builds refining and extraction infrastructure. The government wants you to build more capacity to bring down the cost fuel, but 18 months ago. you watched them just straight up cancel a project which was already half finished.
Would you go for this? I wouldn't.
And you have a bunch of land lease contracts which allow you to extract oil. Without these contracts your business will collapse. The government has said that they won't give you any more until you use the ones you have. But again: they've spent the last 18 months cancelling projects, and talking about how we need to make a transition away from your business.
Do you trust that once you use up the remaining leases you have, that they're really going to give you more? I wouldn't trust that.
The way that the White House, and by extension the administrative branch of the government has decided to redefine "recession" and imply that the economy is doing really well right now is actually scary. These people do have huge levers that control our lives that they can pull. Their actions do have massive effects on the American economy, and by extension the economy of the rest of the world. The actions they're ta…
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/shell-reports-record...
"Shell (SHEL.L) posted record results on Thursday, with a $11.5 billion second-quarter profit smashing the mark it set only three months ago, lifted by strong gas trading and a tripling of refining profit. The company also announced a $6 billion share buyback programme for the current quarter but did not raise its dividend of 25 cents per share. It said shareholder returns would remain 'in excess of 30% of cash flow from operating activities'."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The lying is the present attempt to tell us we’re not in a recession. And her failure to appreciate the scale of the price inflation problem was not just a case of being “wrong.” She was unable to see the worst inflation in 40 years when it was standing right in front of her. She’s a miserable failure.
The NBER defines when a recession starts. That's how it's always worked. You can disagree with how that is done, sure, but that's meaningless to the discussion. Officially, we aren't in one. Claiming otherwise is like me saying you are guilty of a crime before you are found guilty of a crime.
The way that the White House, and by extension the administrative branch of the government has decided to redefine "recession" and imply that the economy is doing really well right now is actually scary. These people do have huge levers that control our lives that they can pull. Their actions do have massive effects on the American economy, and by extension the economy of the rest of the world. The actions they're ta…
Direct actions like what? U.S. crude production is near all-time highs. Gas is expensive because ridiculous Americans will pay it and the oil companies figured that out. Shell just announced a $12 billion quarterly profit. The only thing I want to see out of Biden on gas prices is a windfall tax on oil companies where the funds are dedicated to lithium exploration.