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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?

#51

Post by TradingPlaces »

tlogan wrote: post #42

Recession is called by NBER. And NBER has never failed to put the recession stamp on back-to-back drops in GDP. So …

There were not consecutive negative quarters in 2001. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=SfkY

NBER specifically says GDP is too infrequent and heavily revised to use. Here is what actually happens:

"The NBER's definition emphasizes that a recession involves a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months. In our interpretation of this definition, we treat the three criteria—depth, diffusion, and duration—as somewhat interchangeable. That is, while each criterion needs to be met individually to some degree, extreme conditions revealed by one criterion may partially offset weaker indications from another. For example, in the case of the February 2020 peak in economic activity, the committee concluded that the subsequent drop in activity had been so great and so widely diffused throughout the economy that, even if it proved to be quite brief, the downturn should be classified as a recession.

Because a recession must influence the economy broadly and not be confined to one sector, the committee emphasizes economy-wide measures of economic activity. The determination of the months of peaks and troughs is based on a range of monthly measures of aggregate real economic activity published by the federal statistical agencies. These include real personal income less transfers, nonfarm payroll employment, employment as measured by the household survey, real personal consumption expenditures, wholesale-retail sales adjusted for price changes, and industrial production. There is no fixed rule about what measures contribute information to the process or how they are weighted in our decisions. In recent decades, the two measures we have put the most weight on are real personal income less transfers and nonfarm payroll employment.”

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?

#52

Post by VikingCoder »

krageon wrote: post #41
VikingCoder wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

> Deep Learning is measurably out-performing previous algorithms, and making falsifiable predictions. If you'd care to quote the entire thing where I was telling you you cannot verify it unless you have enough "mana" (i.e. money) to try it, you would also see you have answered your own rebuttal with my original post. > if you read HN and can't think of progress in the last five years, then you must be incredibly cyni…

> unless you have enough "mana" (i.e. money) to try it,

I use deep learning all the time, every day, and the results are better than previous algorithms. I don't need to "verify" the results to know they're better.

> Perhaps! But I don't see you refuting me in any way, so perhaps I'm just correct :)

You're standing in the middle of a record store and complaining that there's no good new music, and then you think the problem is that I'm not enumerating examples to refute you?

If you can't find things to be impressed by on HN, then again, I think you're incredibly cynical.

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

#55

Post by aSithLord »

bmitc wrote: post #49
mc32 wrote: post #33

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 a…

It's a typical Republican strategy over the past few decades. Republican presidents tend to tank the economy, which is then handed over to Democrats, who spend their presidency getting things back to an even keel. Then the recovering or recovered economy gets handed over to Republicans who false espouse their success in "fixing" the economy and then proceed to tank it again.

No post body was provided.

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

#56

Post by kbutler »

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…

Yes, the problems with the economy remain the same whether we attach the label "recession" or not. Yes, job growth is a counter-indicator, an unusual feature of an economy having the problems we are having.

However, there are separate problems with the government scrambling to focus on messaging/spin instead of the actual issues, and the magnifying problem of the whole media complex jumping to toe the party line.

Current statements differ dramatically from previous comments, such as two years ago, when global events also caused a downturn, or even months ago, before the white house started messaging "other factors".

For what it's worth, 2 years ago, NPR stated, 'The standard definition of a recession is "a decline in economic activity that lasts more than a few months.' while noting the covid effects on the economy were broad and deep enough to declare a recession earlier than usual. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...

Yes, let's get the economy going, but let's also have the press play their watchdog role, and not just be boosters of the administration.

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

#57

Post by [deleted] »

bmitc wrote: post #49
mc32 wrote: post #33

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 a…

It's a typical Republican strategy over the past few decades. Republican presidents tend to tank the economy, which is then handed over to Democrats, who spend their presidency getting things back to an even keel. Then the recovering or recovered economy gets handed over to Republicans who false espouse their success in "fixing" the economy and then proceed to tank it again.

[deleted]

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

#58

Post by mc32 »

jkingsbery wrote: post #27

Whether or not we are "in a recession" will not change the underlying metrics. Whatever positives may exist, the agreement seems to be that on an individual-by-individual basis, things are not as good now economically than they were a year ago. Whether NPR or NY Times or WaPo (or the White House) calls it a recession or not is not what's going to drive people's behavior - their bank accounts, their mortgage and rent…

Importantly, investment, securing loans and consequently hiring is going down. It may turn out to be a mild recession or what was called "a technical recession" 2 consecutive down quarters but very mild slowdowns.

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

#59

Post by jaywalk »

bumby wrote: post #38
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-...

The economy may not have been "in good shape" in 2020 (and I would agree that it was not) but we're talking specifically about a recession here. By no measure were we in a recession in 2020.

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

#60

Post by peteradio »

Cyberdog wrote: post #36
criley2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

2 consecutive quarters at -.0000001% is meaningfully different than 2 consecutive quarters at -10%.
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