The U.S. economy entered a recession a year ago this month, the panel that dates American business expansions said today.
The declaration was made by the cycle-dating committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private, nonprofit group of economists based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The last time the U.S. was in a recession was from March through November 2001, according to NBER.
“The committee determined that the decline in economic activity in 2008 met the standard for a recession,” the group said in a statement on its Web site. The 1.2 million drop in payroll employment so far this year was the biggest factor in determining that start of the contraction, the group said.
Federal Reserve policy makers at their last meeting predicted the economy will contract through the middle of 2009, in line with private economists’ forecasts. If correct, the recession would be the longest since the Great Depression.
“It is clearly not going to end in a few months,” Jeffrey Frankel, a member of the group and a professor at Harvard University, said in an interview. “We would be lucky to get done with it in the middle of next year.”
The contraction would be the second under President George W. Bush’s watch, making him the first U.S. leader since Richard Nixon to preside over two recessions.
I was late -- I thought the recession began in the 1Q of 2007.
4 comments:
"I was late -- I thought the recession began in the 1Q of 2007."
Don't you mean 1Q of 2008?
From your July 13, 2008 article in The Huffington Post (quotation is yours):
"the US is in a recession. When it started exactly we won't know for awhile."
It started in December of 2007. If however you examine the previous 7 years using scrupulous, undoctored/unadjusted data you will conclude that the Nation never actually fully recovered from the recession of 2001. In terms of job growth the economy did not create enough jobs to maintain the status quo of the natural demographic increase. In terms of wage growth ex-higher incomes and adjusted for REAL inflation the result is negative.
If you factor out the contribution of net Government borrowing during this period the situation becomes ominously clear. The government has been borrowing about 4% of GDP for 6 years. Subtracting that from the doctored growth reports will show negative growth over that period. If the U.S. economy under Bush was a horse, it would be shot to put it out of its misery.
Didn't Mish say the recession started in the last quarter of 2007? If so, I hope you didn't make a bet with him. :-)
The recession isn't always a bad thing! Most people don't realize how much money there is out there. During economic times like this, there is more money to be had than ever. Because of the bailouts and economy, lenders are bending over backwards to bail you out too. Believe it or not, there is people getting tons of cheap money nowdays to start businesses, buy homes, pay off debt, and more. Profit from Recession
Post a Comment