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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?

#71

Post by dragonwriter »

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 …

> And NBER has never failed to put the recession stamp on back-to-back drops in GDP.

Yes, it has, though only for a period where it was doing business cycle dating purely long-retrospectively and with no contemporary political/policy weight (1947).

OTOH, that just reinforces the idea that the idea that two down quarters doesn't always mean recession isn't a novelty or invented for contemporary political/policy impact.

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

#72

Post by dragonwriter »

hellohowareu wrote: post #7

Two annual quarters of negative growth has been the informal (maybe even formal?) definition for a while now. Just because one party wants to change the definition to avoid hubbub to avoid losing political power does not change reality.

> Two annual quarters of negative growth has been the informal (maybe even formal?) definition for a while now

No, it hasn't.

The informal rule of thumb is two consecutive (not annual) quarters.

But there have been recessions that didn't meet that (most recently, the most recent, two-month COVID recession), and non-recessions (most recently in 1947) that did. The actually definition from NBER is:

“The NBER's traditional definition of a recession is that it is a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months. The committee's view is that while each of the three criteria—depth, diffusion, and duration—needs to be met individually to some degree, extreme conditions revealed by one criterion may partially offset weaker indications from another.”

https://www.nber.org/business-cycle-dating-procedure-frequen...

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

#73

Post by AstralStorm »

kbutler wrote: post #56
asdajksah2123 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Cur…

Job growth on it's own is nothing if the new jobs cannot provide a living (well enough of one), as it will still starve multiple sectors of economy of income and shrink them hard, possibly beyond recovery. And interest rates are already near zero so that cannot be cut either. Taxes could but it will instead ruin already underinvested infrastructure.

Personal monetary liquidity would be a good measure, combined with business liquidity. (Money velocity excluding banks.)

Unfortunate fact is that because prices increased (mostly due to greed in oil/gas sector and housing bubble) and wages did not, it results in USA people facing austerity and cutting spending. And if they have to do it, so do companies, ultimately.

Covid mostly accelerated the trend in a few industries.

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

#74

Post by AstralStorm »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #9
happiness_idx wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The middle class is a myth. If you need your income or assets to survive and can't use it to feast on your neighbors during a crisis with the other vultures then you're a peon like the rest of us. Just because you have to sell the jet ski and the SUV and might have to sell both houses because you over-leveraged trying to leech off of the rest of the working class doesn't mean you're being hurt more than the single mo…

There used to be a way, essentially limiting exposure of yourself to just media and maintenance. If you actually owned the necessary assets and were able to get a big buffer. Typically you got there by not overleveraging or using debt instruments at all.

These days it's getting ever harder to pull it off, if not impossible. Mostly because housing market jumped the shark.

Selling assets can be a problem anyway since many of them actually depreciate hard. Jet ski and old fuel guzzling SUV likely nobody will want. The house, maybe, but it will get ever harder to sell them as buyers are starved of money and credit.

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

#75

Post by AstralStorm »

Bubble_Pop_22 wrote: post #43
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.

> And if you read HN and can't think of progress in the last five years, then you must be incredibly cynical. Reading on HN means 99% of the times aspirational stuff. Aspirational stuff doesn't count. What counts is stuff that improves quality of life in the real world, not just aspirationally sometimes in the future in order to play the musical chair game of the stock market or VC markets. Stuff like mRNA vaccines.…

We need more. We need cheap and clean energy and research in that sector has happened and is happening now, likewise water purification on large scale or we'll go dry.

Improvements in farming and husbandry are also not being deployed as they're marginally more expensive, even though we critically need them.

The visibly good technologies exist and need to be deployed; due to lack of investment in them, cost is prohibitive.

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

#76

Post by hellohowareu »

dragonwriter wrote: post #72
hellohowareu wrote: post #7

Two annual quarters of negative growth has been the informal (maybe even formal?) definition for a while now. Just because one party wants to change the definition to avoid hubbub to avoid losing political power does not change reality.

> Two annual quarters of negative growth has been the informal (maybe even formal?) definition for a while now No, it hasn't. The informal rule of thumb is two consecutive (not annual) quarters. But there have been recessions that didn't meet that (most recently, the most recent, two-month COVID recession), and non-recessions (most recently in 1947) that did. The actually definition from NBER is: “The NBER's traditio…

No post body was provided.

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

#77

Post by krageon »

VikingCoder wrote: post #47
Bubble_Pop_22 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if you read HN and can't think of progress in the last five years, then you must be incredibly cynical. Reading on HN means 99% of the times aspirational stuff. Aspirational stuff doesn't count. What counts is stuff that improves quality of life in the real world, not just aspirationally sometimes in the future in order to play the musical chair game of the stock market or VC markets. Stuff like mRNA vaccines.…

OP also claimed "the pipeline of innovation is also empty," and then you're trying to correct me that HN is showing aspirational stuff. So which is it? Is HN filled with content showcasing the pipeline of innovation or not?

I'll thank you not to put words in my mouth.
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