Comments on: More Bad Economy News: Employers Cut Most Workers Since 2003

By: runasim

runasim — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 15:42:08 +0000

I love it when people rush to quote carefully selected statistics to show that things aren't what they are..
Ask any of the people affected by the current state of the economy, now rising prices being an increasingly important factor, and they'll tell you things are bad.
And they won't care what the definitions of a recession is, either.

By: Slamfu

Slamfu — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:48:34 +0000

Well the I'm certainly not saying the folks at NBER don't know what they are talking about, but the macroeconomic definition is what I stated. The one they give is a bit vague and a decline can be easily confused with merely not growing as fast we you were, yet still growing.

By: mikkel

mikkel — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:59:56 +0000

Oh actually GNI is better. Funny thing is that the last quarter GDP of 0.6% was most likely only positive because of rising import prices that weren't offset by exports. So the trade deficit actually “increases” the GDP in a way through their screwy math.

I believe it was Q3 2007 where there was like a 20% increase in imported oil so that knocked off something like 0.3% off the GDP deflator and hence made GDP much much greater.

By: mikkel

mikkel — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:57:21 +0000

Slamfu the actual NBER has a different definition:

"A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales."

I think they do that so they aren't tied to quarter dating. Also I think that they should move to GDP per capita by that's just me.

Let's just say that we might not be in a "recession" but that every single indicator of a recession I know of points to one.

By: Slamfu

Slamfu — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:32:03 +0000

Not that I don't have my complaints about the economy, the constant downplaying of reality by the Bush administration, or the rampant corruption/incompetence in major institutions that have brought it about, but the term “recession” has a solid definition. Two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Has that actually happened? Recession is not a term that should be thrown about because we feel its happening, but because the numbers back it up.