US Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate) • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by spywaregorilla » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:52 PM UTC

tiahura wrote: post #39

czstar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have evidence she was lying versus being wrong? A number of notable economists thought inflation was transitory. It’s hard to predict things like the effect the war in Ukraine would have and the effect the shipping industry doing its thing would have.

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.

You're changing your story now though. You now have new information that wasn't available at the time of the transitory comment. Information that would all but guarantee large inflation problems.

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

#62

Post by jeffbee » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:52 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #58

jeffbee wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kilogram is a quite poor analogy. The GDP is not an objective indicator of recession for the exact reasons you see around you right now. Contraction of economic activity caused by supply bottlenecks doesn’t fit the pattern of recession. The labor situation is still white hot, prices are going up etc.

Are you saying there can't be a standardized definition of "recession"? What your alluding to seems to indicate that the definition of "two quarters of negative GDP growth" is incorrect (according to Yellen). It doesn't mean there can't be a more accurate definition. That's where the kg analogy fits. There was one definition that is now considered incorrect by consensus.

No, I’m saying there is not one, and defining it strictly as two quarters of gdp decline removes much of the utility of the business cycle dating process.

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

#63

Post by andrew_ » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:53 PM UTC

mckirk wrote: post #45

tiahura wrote: post #27

Quoted post unavailable.

Seeing as initially, inflation was primarily driven by Covid-related supply chain issues, which itself would have been 'transitory', I think it was quite reasonable to call the resulting inflation 'transitory' as well. Crucially, inflation is in part also a social phenomenon, as far as I understand it: if I expect prices to rise, I have to try and price that in, resulting in rising prices. Therefore, the initial atte…

While I do believe supply chain issues had a lot to do with triggering, I cannot look past the invention of 1.5 trillion dollars that were injected into the economy, nor can I look past the hit to labor resulting from government policies around covid . The use of "temporary" or "transitory" was political damage control, the tail wagging the dog.

I view your comment as more of the kind of spin that we're seeing in the media right now; conveniently ignoring larger and more obvious sources of trouble, in order to deflect and downplay the seriousness of the situation.

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

#64

Post by ken47 » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:54 PM UTC

No group of people, Republican or Democrat, can stop the perpetual cycles of human history. At best, we can only delay the inevitable.

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

#65

Post by MattGaiser » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:54 PM UTC

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #7

iamricks wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the White House, it is not [1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2022/07/21/...

Kind of amazing how this administration isn’t getting the kind of ridicule that would be expected if the previous administration tried to deny a recession was happening according to the objective definition by including a subjective qualifier. Is this not the same thing as ‘alternate facts’?

But it is not the objective definition:

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jul/27/instagram-...

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

#66

Post by shagie » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:55 PM UTC

slaw wrote: post #10

nimbius wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seems so, although id argue the recession light came on in the cockpit sometime around late 2020...we just chose to ignore it. doubling down on 2010s speculative monetary policy of near negative interest is just wishful thinking, but directing relief grants to multibillion dollar industries was bad comedy. its really hard to imagine how the fed assumed 'free money' was a sober policy to drive one of the worlds larges…

Is dollar going to stop being world reserve currency with 15% inflation?

If we survived the economics of the 80s, we can survive the 2020s.

Next, pick a country and its inflation rate. The Euro? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/01/business/eurozone-inflati...

Pick another currency that meets the requirements of being a reserve currency and then look at its inflation rate.

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

#67

Post by andrew_ » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:56 PM UTC

spywaregorilla wrote: post #61

tiahura wrote: post #39

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.

You're changing your story now though. You now have new information that wasn't available at the time of the transitory comment. Information that would all but guarantee large inflation problems.

I believe they had numbers on how much money was injected into the economy from the money printer, they had numbers around how many people had exited the workforce and available jobs versus filled. These folks are supposed to be analytical, intelligent, skilled statisticians. Instead, we're getting politically-minded loosely-defined-economists that are ignoring the breadth of information in favor of a cozy narrative.

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

#68

Post by bumby » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:57 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #62

bumby wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying there can't be a standardized definition of "recession"? What your alluding to seems to indicate that the definition of "two quarters of negative GDP growth" is incorrect (according to Yellen). It doesn't mean there can't be a more accurate definition. That's where the kg analogy fits. There was one definition that is now considered incorrect by consensus.

No, I’m saying there is not one, and defining it strictly as two quarters of gdp decline removes much of the utility of the business cycle dating process.

Yellen seems to disagree, although she said the two quarters definition is too blunt and the "official" definition, the one used by NBER, takes a much more broad picture of the economy.

"There's an organization called the National Bureau of Economic Research that looks at a broad range of data in deciding whether or not there is a recession. And most of the data that they look at right now continues to be strong. I would be amazed if the NBER would declare this period to be a recession, even if it happens to have two quarters of negative growth."[1]

I think maybe you're conflating "standardized fact" with "objective fact." A kilogram is a standardized fact, even though the objective weight of the object may change. We agree there isn't an objective definition of a recession; I'm saying that despite that, there is a standardized definition. And it isn't "two consecutive quarters of negative growth."

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-july-24-20...

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

#69

Post by melling » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:57 PM UTC

yuan43 wrote: post #43

> 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…

Doesn’t a Fed typically lower rates during a recession?

At least at some point, in order to bring a country out of the recession.

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

#70

Post by wallawe » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:57 PM UTC

ken47 wrote: post #64

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.