The official recession
Unsurprising confirmation that the U.S. economy has soured
The government declares an official recession, since December 2007.
(AP Photo/Richard Drew)
“The National Bureau of Economic Research has finally confirmed what the real world has known for at least a year,” said Irwin Kellner in MarketWatch. Namely, the U.S. is “well into its 11th postwar recession.” The NBER, the unofficial arbiter of U.S. recessions, says that this one started in December 2007. Knowing the start date helps us predict the end, and "in my view, the most likely outcome” is a longer-than-average recession that could end before May.
That’s a little optimistic, said Steve Benen in Washington Monthly online. Only two post-war recessions have been longer—November 1973 to March 1975, and July 1981 to November 1982—and the NBER’s data “suggests the current recession is very likely to be the longest since the Great Depression.”
Unsurprisingly, “Wall Street did not take the news well,” with the Dow dropping 7.7 percent, said Susan Tompor in the Detroit Free Press. But the official confirmation of a recession “really wasn’t much news to many of us.” With friends being laid off, rising foreclosures, and empty stores and restaurants, “we could feel in our bones—and our pocketbooks and 401(k) plans—that we were in a painful recession.”
Well, the recession couldn’t have happened without our help, said the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in an editorial. Our inflated housing values had to fall, but while the going was good, “everyone was in on the deal: individuals, banks, regulators, and government.” President Bush didn’t cause it, but he “helped bring about the recession” by pushing “no taxes and no money down” on wars and government services. Now “the bill is due.”
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4 Comments
Posted by Ed, Tuesday, December 2, 2008, 10:04 am What I find funny is how many people are saying "we've know this for a year" but I've heard/read very few reports admitting or specualting we have been in a recession int he past year. And some very prominent people are still reluctant to call it what it is (Bush, Paulson and their minions). Hopefully we'll start seeing this get better by the middle of 2009.
Posted by Jesica, Tuesday, December 2, 2008, 11:00 am by definintion a recession is two consecutive quarters of decline in GDP, so as far as us being in one for the last year, i think not. funny how quickly we forget our history, fail to realize that everything is cyclical, especially the economy, and that gov't intervention is the worst way to deal with it. it was the Dem gov't that made Fannie and Freddie dole out bad loans, and when they sold them off everything came crashing down. we need to limit gov't involvement, cut taxes and let it right itself on its own. thin freedom is better then fat slavery.
Posted by Muhammad Fatala, Tuesday, December 9, 2008, 3:41 pm Americans and the western world have always been in a recession of their souls. People think of the Muslim world as being poor nations but we are willing to die for our faith, for the Propher, for Allah! This is where true wealth lies, being rich in spirit. Only when Americans and the western world abandons their savage beliefs and capitulates to Islam and the Prophet will this recession end and true wealth be found. As-Salamu Alaykum, Allah Akbar.
Posted by Frederick Phelps, Tuesday, December 9, 2008, 3:43 pm That moslem mohammad is right in a sense. But replace everything about Islam and Allah with Jesus Christ.
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