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

Most of the US economy is in a recession

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 257 posts

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#221

Post by hshdhdhj4444 »

SlinkyOnStairs wrote: post #134
amazingamazing wrote: post #98

2023 - "The US is already in a 'rolling recession'": https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/recession-mi... 2024 - vibe cession: https://www.businessinsider.com/consumers-pessimistic-on-eco... 2025 - "a recession in 2025": https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/2025-stock-m... people just so desperately want the USA to be in a recession it seems.

> people just so desperately want the USA to be in a recession it seems. You've got it the wrong way around. People are desperate to explain why their experience of the economy; Which for most people is "not good", doesn't match the formal economic metrics and definitions of a "recession". Constant layoffs, horrible job market, even worse housing market, and the lingering inflation. The other half of this is of cours…

The Biden administration missed this completely.

They looked at headline numbers and saw that everything was improving and couldn’t understand why people were behaving as if we were in a recession.

The current situation is a lot worse. Everything isn’t improving. It’s improving but more slowly, flat or getting worse. So the administration is reduced to pointing to the only things that are improving (albeit more slowly). Hence the Attorneh General’s infamous response in her congressional hearing on the Epstein files, that the Dow was over 50k.

Ultimately it comes down to the K shaped economy. The upper arm of the K is doing better than the lower arm is doing worse, so the average is a rise, but in reality the number of people in the lower arm is significantly greater than the number of people in the upper, hence the “vibecession”.

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#222

Post by joe_mamba »

PearlRiver wrote: post #170
dzonga wrote: post #80

that's pretty obvious to everyone in the US what's not obvious to most people - is how e.g other countries that are already struggling will get into deeper depths e.g UK where cost of energy was super high. UK is not bombing Iran, but their economy will cry more than the US what's not obvious is how a few oil Barrons will make so much money in the next few weeks e.g those in Texas - their great grand-children will ne…

Yeah in rich countries nobody is going to starve- at worst you'll have to shop at Aldi. In Africa the price of bread actually matters...

>Yeah in rich countries nobody is going to starve- at worst you'll have to shop at Aldi.

Except that people in rich countries expect a higher bar for their standard of living than just avoiding starvation given the amount of taxes they pay and how expensive life is.

It's not like if you live in a wealthy country it's all sunshine and roses, you're subjected to continuous mass layoffs while still paying wealthy country levels of rent, and people here were already shopping at Lidl to stay afloat. If you keep squeezing them further, they'll just vote the most radical left/right wing candidate who promises to flip the monopoly board over and you don't want that. Telling them to eat (Lidl) cake is never gonna end up well.

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#223

Post by joe_mamba »

dzonga wrote: post #80

that's pretty obvious to everyone in the US what's not obvious to most people - is how e.g other countries that are already struggling will get into deeper depths e.g UK where cost of energy was super high. UK is not bombing Iran, but their economy will cry more than the US what's not obvious is how a few oil Barrons will make so much money in the next few weeks e.g those in Texas - their great grand-children will ne…

>if you're in the US/Netherlands you will be okay in terms of food

I don't get it. Why is Netherlands in the same boat as the US? Do they have some crazy oil reserves I don't know about?

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#224

Post by Intermernet »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #219
Intermernet wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia has fairly short fixed term mortgages. There are people who are barely recovering from covid effects on the interest rates. There are many who lost everything. Another bout of "high interest rates are a blunt instrument" could cause serious problems. Note. This doesn't affect me, and I have strong opinions on the property market in Australia, but I'm pointing out that many people will go to the wall if inte…

I think it’s well established in economic circles that unemployment goes up as inflation falls. We are seeing signs of this in the UK at the moment. Letting it run away causes its own problems though. Take a look at South America to see what happens if you can’t manage inflation.

Inflation and unemployment are seen as results of demand. They're both regarded as effects. One isn't the cause of the other.

At least in most economic theory... Which is possibly not the best theory to put much weight in, considering how changeable and unproven it is.

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#225

Post by _heimdall »

alephnerd wrote: post #188
_heimdall wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GCC countries do host US bases, but where are you sourcing the idea that they lobbied Trump to attack Iran?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/28/trump-ira...

Thanks! Israel is obviously no surprise. I hadn't seen anything of the Saudis pushing for the attack so that's new to me, though that's only one of the GCC countries.

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#226

Post by _heimdall »

ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #51
_heimdall wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been redefining recession recently, it may not matter much what the textbook definition is.

What specifically has changed?

Historically, both politicians and yhe media considered two consecutive quarters of declining GDP. The Biden administration changed that, basically arguing that the definition is too narrow and they preferred to use a more broad set of indicators that just so happened to avoid calling a recession when they wanted to claim a strong economy.

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#227

Post by incomingpain »

Looking at the numbers, that cant lie. The only industry that has contracted: United States GDP Growth Contribution Government

GDP up from Agriculture

GDP up from Construction

GDP up from Manufacturing

GDP up from Mining

GDP down from Public Administration -0.9% single quarter.

GDP up from Services

GDP up from Transport

GDP up from Utilities

Also important to note, War costs a ton of money. War economy coming. The probability of another quarter of low spending is 0%

Now consider the scenario where major entities bought a ton short positions because they thought Trump's insanity would crash the economy. Now they are about to hurt badly. Hence the fake news.

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#228

Post by duxup »

amazingamazing wrote: post #98

2023 - "The US is already in a 'rolling recession'": https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/recession-mi... 2024 - vibe cession: https://www.businessinsider.com/consumers-pessimistic-on-eco... 2025 - "a recession in 2025": https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/2025-stock-m... people just so desperately want the USA to be in a recession it seems.

I think more so people saw past cycles as relatively predictable and sever since the mortgage crisis they are looking for bits of that expectation.

Also ... doom and gloom gets more views.

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#229

Post by suriya-ganesh »

FireBeyond wrote: post #159
suriya-ganesh wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently moved out of new york to new jersey. don't have a car. my options now are either buy a car, pay insurance, maintenance etc. north $1,500/mo for the convenience of going to the grocery store or, get a subscription for all these services ~ $200/mo. and save myself the time spent back and forth doing grocery shopping. I cook 90% of my food. not all solutions involve owning a car.

> my options now are either buy a car, pay insurance, maintenance etc. north $1,500/mo for the convenience Huh? Decent car payment at $300-500/month, insurance at $200/month, and I'm wondering what $1,000/month of car "maintenance" looks like, considering $250/month will get you a full tank of a gas a week.

parking is another $200.

not to mention the tolls.

my point is, ~$1500 is grocery for a month for us. why would i spend that much on just a car?

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#230

Post by thrance »

amazingamazing wrote: post #98

2023 - "The US is already in a 'rolling recession'": https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/recession-mi... 2024 - vibe cession: https://www.businessinsider.com/consumers-pessimistic-on-eco... 2025 - "a recession in 2025": https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/2025-stock-m... people just so desperately want the USA to be in a recession it seems.

At any given time, there are enough economists fearing a recession to write an article about it. Doesn't mean they're always wrong though, recessions do happen.
Post reply on HN