Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

bea.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 509 posts

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#371

Post by RC_ITR »

partiallypro wrote: post #237

I personally think we're in recession and the reason is datapoints outside of this GDP print, what companies are saying, and the fact I know people that have been laid off already. What I find pathetic is that saying we are in a recession is now a political stance. I think we all know that if a Republican were President the entire narrative would shift, with most of the press saying we're in recession while Fox, etc…

> What I find pathetic is that saying we are in a recession is now a political stance.

This is such a weird information play. Recessions are defined after the fact by NBER. Always have. Always will be. There’s no set criteria.

Informally people cite the two quarters rule, but 2/5 past recessions (2000 and 2020) don’t follow that rule.

No one wants to communicate that nuance so we get mass confusion.

Sad to see that confusion even exists in HN.

What’s actually concerning to me is exactly that: every nuanced discussion in politics is now some gotcha where a reporter asks “yes or no” to a question that has a detailed answer.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#372

Post by kmeisthax »

InefficientRed wrote: post #264
partiallypro wrote: post #237

I personally think we're in recession and the reason is datapoints outside of this GDP print, what companies are saying, and the fact I know people that have been laid off already. What I find pathetic is that saying we are in a recession is now a political stance. I think we all know that if a Republican were President the entire narrative would shift, with most of the press saying we're in recession while Fox, etc…

Descriptions of economic conditions are obviously politicized. This was probably always true to an extent, but it really took off during the early Obama years. That said... my wealth manager has been and still is waffling when I ask him if we are in a recession. It's NOT just political; I don't even know my wealth manager's politics and I have absolutely no doubt he puts fiduciary responsibilities first and makes fac…

Hey, remember back in 2009 or so when everyone was cheering that we were "out of" the Great Recession, but everyone not part of Wall Street was still bleeding? I feel like this might wind up being a reverse of that; and the reason for this is that most economic data are aggregates that are missing the whole picture.

GDP numbers are back up? Great - except that's just higher because the handful of companies that can really capitalize on 0% interest rates are doing so. Everyone else is still down from 2007.

Unemployment is falling? Great - except that those people are leaving the labor force or taking lower-wage jobs than they had before.

There's all sorts of ways that the headline numbers can hide the discontent of a large group of people under the rug. And likewise this can happen in the opposite direction. The economy as a whole can be screwed over in ways that happen to give small business owners or the working class more negotiating leverage or a greater share of the pie.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#373

Post by NCC1701DEngage »

twoquestions wrote: post #254
thepasswordis wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Biden and other world government officials placed massive sanctions on Russia exports of oil. They seized hundreds of billions of dollars of their deposits at the federal reserve. Forget about the fact that his administration had already been driving up the price of fuel, this had a huge effect on the futures prices, driving them up to where they are now. Their actions do have effects and sometimes a corrupt gr…

> have driven up the cost of fuel (which benefits them, an energy exporter), Urals crude is trading $20-$30 below Brent, and China and India have Russia over a barrel when negotiating prices. https://www.neste.com/investors/market-data/urals-brent-pric... The war has not been going well for Russia at all, stagnant at best https://understandingwar.org/project/ukraine-project > is substantially richer Russia has been p…

>Perun's Youtube channel has been a great deep-dive source into the war economy in general.

You watch the Good Times Bad Times channel too by any chance?

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#374

Post by AdamN »

alchemist1e9 wrote: post #249
engineer_22 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CNN headline: Who decides if the US is in a recession? Eight White economists you've never heard of Is this a joke? It's like something you'd overhear at brunch from a group of co-eds

Now recessions are racists then?

That wouldn't be the implication of a title like that and I suspect you know you're being disingenuous. It would mean that some of our most important decisions are being made by people from a single background that doesn't reflect the makeup of their stakeholders, the American public.

As a thought exercise, would you think it's not notable if the 8 person board was entirely female .. or entirely black?

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#375

Post by AdamN »

thepasswordis wrote: post #91

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…

?? Gas is up in the rest of the world too so it's pretty easy to disprove that it's due to the direct actions of the Biden administration.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#376

Post by p_j_w »

InefficientRed wrote: post #367
p_j_w wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd cite the WSJ but for some reason I can't paste the link in this box, just Google "falling demand Wal-Mart" I'd rather not base my picture of the entire economy around a single retailer. What's going on with other retailers? Amazon, Best Buy, Target, etc? Have they more than picked up the slack that Wal Mart is seeing?

> I'd rather not base my picture of the entire economy around a single retailer Or retailers in general. Retail spending is down because services spending is up -- people are going to the beach and buying plane tickets instead of buying TVs and patio furniture. Regardless of whether we're in a recession, retailer numbers aren't a good indicator for the duration/depth/type. We spent all of 2020 hearing that demand was…

>Or retailers in general. Retail spending is down because services spending is up -- people are going to the beach and buying plane tickets instead of buying TVs and patio furniture.

>Regardless of whether we're in a recession, retailer numbers aren't a good indicator for the duration/depth/type. We spent all of 2020 hearing that demand was pulled forward. Well, it was pulled forward from somewhere, and now we are there.

All fair points.

>Best Buy missed by a lot; sales down by over 10%; forecast was a 1% contraction.

Ouch.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#377

Post by DIARRHEA_xd »

bshoemaker wrote: post #366
mywittyname wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that we are in a recession. >How did we get to a point where actual data can be outright denied or absorbed based on your political viewpoint? Because the actual data is sending mixed signals. People equate recessions with job losses, but job growth is still high and unemployment remains incredibly low. Businesses equate recessions with reduced demand for goods and and services, yet demand remains strong enou…

Quoted post unavailable.

Hey please consider changing this comment to substantively add to the discussion. Empty snark, no matter how good it feels, really isn't HNs style and doesn't promote healthy discourse.

Yours truly, DIARRHEA_xd

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#378

Post by s1artibartfast »

headsoup wrote: post #92
wallawe wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the more harmful thing this extreme political shitfighting is doing is stopping just seriously getting on with doing everything possible to improve things. "We're not actually in a recession." So what?! Just acknowledge things aren't good and get to fixing them, be honest with the public and have some bloody integrity for once. The US (and UK, and Australia, etc) partisan political playground fighting is ridi…

Exactly. The question of recession is red herring and distraction.

More people are working and can buy less. This is not a good thing.

Lets talk about what we can do to improve things.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#379

Post by babypuncher »

bushbaba wrote: post #310
njcgbc wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Businesses equate recessions with reduced demand for goods and and services, yet demand remains strong This isn't true, major retailers have been reporting falling demand. I'd cite the WSJ but for some reason I can't paste the link in this box, just Google "falling demand Wal-Mart" > enough to push prices and profits to record levels. Adjust both for inflation

Falling demand of non-necessities. People aren't buying "TVs". Which as you call out, is a stupidly strong recessionary signal.

But demand for services and "experiences" is way up.

I think it's unrealistic to expect retail goods to maintain the same highs they had during the pandemic. For a big chunk of the last two years, people couldn't go to concerts, bars and restaurants operated at limited capacity, vacation destinations had travel restrictions in place, etc. This lead people to take the discretionary income they would normally spend on those things and put it into retail goods that improve their lives stuck at home. TVs, game consoles, what have you. Now that restrictions are essentially nonexistent in the US, people are returning to those pre-COVID activities.

Re: US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate)

#380

Post by ConceitedCode »

rockemsockem wrote: post #270
partiallypro wrote: post #237

I personally think we're in recession and the reason is datapoints outside of this GDP print, what companies are saying, and the fact I know people that have been laid off already. What I find pathetic is that saying we are in a recession is now a political stance. I think we all know that if a Republican were President the entire narrative would shift, with most of the press saying we're in recession while Fox, etc…

I've seen the word recession thrown around plenty in the press; who's avoiding saying it? As pointed out by another commenter the NBER has never failed to declare a recession after two consecutive quarters of GDP reduction. This is a preliminary report, I would expect them to wait for the full report to actually declare it. These things work a certain way. Whether that way is good or bad isn't relevant to this partic…

> As pointed out by another commenter the NBER has never failed to declare a recession after two consecutive quarters of GDP reduction.

That isn't 100% accurate. There is 1 example from 1947 where we had two consecutive quarters of negative GDP, but positive jobs, positive industrial production and positive consumer spending and NBER doesn't consider it a recession.

2001 was the opposite. It was called a recession without consecutive 2 quarters of negative GDP growth. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_2000s_recession#/media/F...

Post reply on HN