Was just reading the projections for this fiscal year by Bernanke and it seems the Fed is forcasting between .3-1.2% growth. I remember reading a lot of threads in the late winter/early spring saying we either were already in a recession or were nearly there.
So…did we ‘officially’ enter a recession or are we in one now? Did we get 2 back to back months of negative growth? Is there a concensus on this by economists?
(I’m putting this in GQ because I’d like to see a fact based answer, not a debate…there SHOULD be a factual answer to this OP anyway).
We can’t know if we’re in a recession or not, yet. The soonest we can know is Oct-- when the GDP growth rate for Q3 comes out. That assumes Q2 is negative, which it may not be. A recession is 2 consecutive quarters of negative growth.
Ok, poor phrasing on my part. You are right John…we won’t know until the figures come out. WERE we in a recession earlier this year or late last year? I remember people predicting with confidence that we were already in one at that time…or shortly would be.
Since I don’t want this to go to GD, forget about the ‘are we in one now’ part as that would be speculative.
The financial press generally looks to the National Bureau of Economic Research for the definitive pronouncement as to the beginning and end of a recession. The NBER is an academic (not government) organization which appoints a Business Cycle Dating Committee specifically to consider the matter.
The NBER defines a recession as “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”. This is slightly broader than the traditional “two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP” definition.
The NBER normally determines that a recession has begun 6 to 18 months after the fact. They haven’t yet issued any pronouncement as to this cycle, so we weren’t in a recession as of 6 to 18 months ago. That’s all we can say right now; stay tuned.
Maybe technically or not, but people have money, or perhaps I should say credit.
I don’t see anyone going without things. I mean just look at cell phones, cable TV, high speed internet. People are getting these things and keeping them in masse.
It cracks me up when I see news reports of more people going to food banks, yet the people in these food banks have cell phones. Obviously they aren’t hurting if they can afford a cell phone. Or these people weigh 250 pounds and getting free food.
I think it’s become fashionable to cry poor. We may be heading toward one, but people aren’t suffering any, they are crying they are, but they aren’t making any cutback that I would say that means we are in a recession.
Of course we could be heading toward one, if the number of people defaulting continues, but I’ve not seen home prices drop or rents decrease. They keep building condos in my area and some of these have been empty for years.
Part of the issue I think is that in major cities we have foreigners buying. I read in the NY Times over 70% of condo sales in Manhattan are to foreigners who only live here part time. Florida homes and condos are at about 25% sales to foreigners. So this may prop up the economy while the locals hurt.
So while we may be heading for recession I have seen no real world signs we are in it. And I can guarantee you all you people who are going to disagree with me are just crying poor. If I could go over your finances I bet you’re the only reason you’re hurting is you live way beyond your means.
Jesus dude, do you think people enjoy going to food shelves for charity handouts? And your comment that housing prices have not dropped is simply false.
Just a friendly word of advice, since you’re new and may not be familiar with the rules. We’re supposed to stick to facts in this forum-- it’s a place where people seek factual answers to questions. Anyway, it might be helpful to read the forum rules before posting more here.
Note that we’ve been in many recessions before, and I don’t know how ones measures the level of “suffering” that is typically experienced during one of them.
I don’t know where you live but I can tell you that I own a house in the Phoenix, AZ area that I bought last year for $200,000. It is now work about $130,000. Housing prices in Arizona and California are most definitely dropping.
Afford cell phone? What are you, trapped in the nineties? Market value of used cell phone is, like, small bag of rice… if you are lucky. Close to zero, anyway. And usefulness of cell phone is very high. It’s one of the last item you’ll sell. You chosen very bad example.
As the question is obviously not going to be addressed in a GQ type manner I’m just going to request a mod close the thread. It’s pretty pointless at this point.