Just watched Bernanke ( on CNBC ) deposing and telling he does not know yet if U.S is in recession…
Who will officially tell if U.S is in recession ??
The accepted “official” definition for a recession is we have two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
So we wait until July, providing the first quarter of the year is “officially” announced as being negative growth. Has that “official” announcement come out yet?
We’ve had recessions in the past that were not officially recognized until they were able to point to data to declare them already over. We’ve had recessions not officially recognised for close to a year. The bottom line is that the government won’t say that we’re in a recession until it’s obvious to Helen Keller that something is seriously wrong with the economy. And usually that’s only to add fuel to the “Gosh, we should do something about this” debate which by that time, has already been raging for a good six months.