Kind of amazing how this administration isn’t getting the kind of ridicule that would be expected if the previous administration tried to deny a recession was happening according to the objective definition by including a subjective qualifier.
It's fairly obvious there are political bias in american media and always has been. If your party is hostile to increasing federal government or regulatory capture you will be under a microscope and even sacrifice some credibility to attack you, otherwise you can bumble around, redefine common terms, deflect and mislead and have the entirety of relevant and 'trusted' media sources run cover for you indefinitely.
Even just 15 years ago it was nowhere this overt or coordinated. The turning point seems to be shortly after JournoList and CabalList started when different independent media organizations began to collude to push a unified "narrative" rather than the truth.
There are many people, including me, that are happy with Trump's Supreme Court nominees. As originalists and textualists they are more likely to do their job of keeping the other branches of government to the bounds of the their Constitutional power. Biden's nominee also claims to be an originalist and a textualist. So, I really don't see the point of your complaint. Unless your complaint is that 3 judges were nominated by the red team so they must be red team loyal. Loyalty to a party is not a desirable attribute of a Supreme Court justice. Reducing party loyalty is the reason for lifetime appointment. Once a judge is appointed they have no reason to rule along their nominating party lines.
We'll see when a fourth amendment case comes across their docket how true they are to the constitution and limiting government. I'm not holding my breath.
In fairness, the "free from government" party has direct ties to foreign powers that are openly trying to drive us to a civil war.
Taking away bodily autonomy is just a minor skirmish; and the means justify the ends, after all.
Wait till next year when the sodomy and birth control laws start to pass, along with the plans to erect border checkpoints within the US to prevent people from entering and leaving certain states.
Those are enabled by existing supreme court rulings. They've already taken up a case for next year that will allow state legislatures (that are already controlled via gerrymandering, and often elected by a minority) to just ignore vote tallies and appoint whoever they want.
I'm curious to see who the military sides with during the inevitable 2024 coup. Last time, they made it clear they would remove Trump by force if needed. Presumably they're not becoming more loyal to him, given that he's out of office, but it will be dicey when they have to choose between ending democracy in the US or overriding the supreme court and also the house or senate.
They are basing it off facts. The NBER is the one who defines a recessions. They haven't done so (that I'm aware of) as of right now.
It might be that it will eventually be the case, but the arbitrator of this hasn't ruled on it.
Calling it a recession officially now would be the alternate fact.
Basically, it's like how someone can be guilty of something, but you still have to say "alleged" before referencing the crime.
Yes, you might have a million witnesses, but they aren't guilty until they are guilty.
And I'd much rather have a government that abides by these rules than not. Offhanded remarks based on willful disregard to order should not be encouraged.
That the definition of a recession has always been 2 quarters of negative GDP. The administration now believes there is nuance in the numbers, so what was the accepted definition in the past is no longer.
The fact the media on whole has decided it's ok to redefine a commonly accepted definition when the administration promotes it lends itself to the media being a mouthpiece for the administration.
I am willing to understand nuance and a changing definition, as I am sure there are parts of the economy people are learning to deal with. Gig workers, workers headed back from retirement and more. This doesn't even touch on the self fulfilling prophecy of hearing that the country is in a recession.
I am less willing to accept a change in a short timeframe and right before numbers are released.
I mean I hear you on "changing the definition" from the commonly accepted two quarters of declining GDP numbers- though that was never actually official, you are mistaken about that- the NBER is the "official" source and they declare it based on a range of factors that there is some subjectiveness to- its not a direct formula.
However, wouldn't you agree there is nuance here?
In Q4, GDP rose 6.9%, a number so big that we haven't seen that in decades- it appears around the early 1980s was the last time we saw those kinds of numbers. There has been a lot of whipsaw effects as we get out of covid- supply chains are all over the place, companies placing orders to get goods in to avoid snarls, only to now find that demand for goods, which boomed during the pandemic, has now eased as people have reverted to spending on going out and traveling, etc... There seems to be a lot of mismatch in supply and demand again.
The unemployment rate is at 3.6%- an astonishingly low number- these lows were last seen in the 1960s and 1970s.
On the flipside, inflation is high, gas prices are high and that hurts a lot of people- I live in a city, so this is mostly irrelevant and driven by forces out of anyone in the US govt's control.
There is evidence of some rockier times ahead, but when I think "recession" I think of a lot more pain than what we are currently experiencing.
>That the definition of a recession has always been 2 quarters of negative GDP.
Well, if you want to be specific, the NBER (which calls the game on what is a recession or not) defines it as "a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months."
The "two quarters of declining real GDP" (GDP increased by 7.8% in nominal terms) is the pop-economics yardstick.
Are you aware we had a recession in 2001? And yet that managed to happen without having two consecutive quarters of negative GDP.
> This doesn't even touch on the self fulfilling prophecy of hearing that the country is in a recession.
That's not how recessions work. There is always people predicting a recession and always people predicting a turnaround or growth. It's quite simple, however, to engineer a recession when you raise interest rates for such a heavily indebted economy.
I am unsure the point you are making. My point was related to mindset and I should have clarified. If a group of people, normal non economic expert citizens, believe a recession is here they change their behavior. The media plays a part in amplifying it. At that point it doesn't matter what is happening at a macro economic level.
I am for introducing nuance to the judgement of a recession or not. I am not for doing it right before numbers are released the admin saying, "Well, there is nuance in the determination" before the numbers are released. At best all you are doing is introducing confusion to the non economic expert citizens and at worst you are attempting to gaslight people.
The news media is not nearly as objective as they claim to be. And, they exercise a considerable amount of discretion when it comes to either amplifying a potential controversy or downplaying it.
Yes, BBC isn't moderate just like NPR isn't moderate anymore. May be in the 20th century, BBC and NPR were neutral. But, that's clearly and indisputedly not true anymore. They're all left leaning.
There is a consideration that NBER isn't the issue. yes you are correct, they make a determination. I think the difference this time is that you have what was commonly accepted among normal people that 2 quarters negative meant recession. This time there is pushback against it.
I think the hang up is more political than technical. When the opposing party controls the white house there wouldn't be broad support for "let's wait and let NBER make a determination."
>”You beclown yourself by believing there is or has ever been an objective definition. There is not and has never been.”
Okay, consider myself beclowned then. So how did economists define all of the previous recessions on record? I know that ‘a recession’ is not a scientific measurement, it is a conventional definition.
But don’t you find it odd that the administration wants to jettison the conventional definition when it applies to the economy under their leadership? Right before the midterms, no less?
Their procedure is subjective, but there is still a standardized measure of convenience, no?
Just like there is an "official kilogram". We can say, "That's an objective measurement of weight on Earth" but it's not. It's the measurement of the standard kilogram in France. And that "objective" measure can change [1]. It doesn't mean there isn't a consensus on what a kilogram is.
Yellen was on Meet the Press last week explaining there is a difference between the "official" measure of a recession and the "two quarters of negative growth" heuristic. That's not to say that politicians can't, or won't, play wordsmith games.
The kilogram is a quite poor analogy. The GDP is not an objective indicator of recession for the exact reasons you see around you right now. Contraction of economic activity caused by supply bottlenecks doesn’t fit the pattern of recession. The labor situation is still white hot, prices are going up etc.
Are you saying there can't be a standardized definition of "recession"?
What your alluding to seems to indicate that the definition of "two quarters of negative GDP growth" is incorrect (according to Yellen). It doesn't mean there can't be a more accurate definition.
That's where the kg analogy fits. There was one definition that is now considered incorrect by consensus.
No, I’m saying there is not one, and defining it strictly as two quarters of gdp decline removes much of the utility of the business cycle dating process.
Yellen seems to disagree, although she said the two quarters definition is too blunt and the "official" definition, the one used by NBER, takes a much more broad picture of the economy.
"There's an organization called the National Bureau of Economic Research that looks at a broad range of data in deciding whether or not there is a recession. And most of the data that they look at right now continues to be strong. I would be amazed if the NBER would declare this period to be a recession, even if it happens to have two quarters of negative growth."[1]
I think maybe you're conflating "standardized fact" with "objective fact." A kilogram is a standardized fact, even though the objective weight of the object may change. We agree there isn't an objective definition of a recession; I'm saying that despite that, there is a standardized definition. And it isn't "two consecutive quarters of negative growth."
Get used to it. We're back to the status quo (of incompetent media). In fact, it was the same for the previous admin, just in a different way.
The System doesn't like outsiders. If you haven't paid your dues, sucked up, kissed the ring, etc. then you're marginalized. Put another way, how would it look if someone with no experience was decently effective? Say about as effective as the current highly experienced (politician) that's POTUS?
I'm no fan of Don T, but given humam nature and The System, he was doomed to "fail" no matter what. As in, perception is reality (and most people now have a bias that isn't going to change).
It's worth adding - especially for the down voters - that prior to leaving The Daily Show, Jon Stewart was the most trusted source for news for a fair percentage of the population. The channel for TDS was on...Comedy Central.
Believing in the mainstream media is the adult equivalent of believing in Santa Claus.
Government forcing people out of their jobs and then allowing them to come back into the work force is not job growth in the sense of anything meaningful. So no it probably hasn't been seen before, but it's irrelevant, if I took your 10 dollars today and gave you back 8 dollars next week, your bank account isn't growing unless you only look at this weeks balance and choose to ignore the extremely recent past.
That doesn't make sense since employment is near capacity right now and the worker shortage is still very real. Mind you this is now long after all the covid benefits have dried up.
Employment is higher than it was before Covid and unemployment is down at around the same level. To put it in terms of your metaphor, the bank has given you back $10.10 or so for your $10.
But when you give back the $8, you just need to tell them that "bank account growth" only matters week to week. Boom, they're now $8 richer thanks to you!
According to many of Biden's economic advisers, it is.
For example:
"Of course economists have a technical definition of recession, which is two consecutive quarters of negative growth."
-- The head of Biden's National Economic Council, in a past life, apparently.
You can find many other examples in the past of his advisors defining a recession as two quarters of negative GDP. And you can find many examples in the past of the press defining a recession as two quarters of negative growth.
"two negative quarters in a row is a standard indicator for an economic recession."
seems so, although id argue the recession light came on in the cockpit sometime around late 2020...we just chose to ignore it. doubling down on 2010s speculative monetary policy of near negative interest is just wishful thinking, but directing relief grants to multibillion dollar industries was bad comedy.
its really hard to imagine how the fed assumed 'free money' was a sober policy to drive one of the worlds largest economies on. the best we can hope for now is the student and automotive credit bubbles dont burst under the strain of half-percentage-point increases, which i suspect will continue throughout 2023 as inflation crests 15%.
That is the result from the rate of inflation changes being so steep. As it is, the interest rate is being adjusted at the fastest reasonable (and predictable) rate. There were more than a few people shocked with the first 0.75% increase... not so many this past time.
For addressing inflation, the fed's tools are rather blunt (adjusting interest rate). The issues of disrupted logistics and energy cost increases are ones that the fed has little direct control over. The monetary policy tools are being used to the greatest degree they can. The fiscal policy tools have been left rather idle as those require political will to use.
Returning to the reserve currency question - is there another currency that meets the requirements? Saying "the euro" is ok - and that represents the second largest reserve currency holdings, but, if you are pointing to inflation, it is hitting just as hard in Europe. The yen and the pound sterling have their own issues and China's currency has another set of issues.
The crystal ball gazing of "what about 15% inflation and reserve currency" misses out on what is happening to the rest of the world and what can and is being done to address inflation.
Personally, I think it would be great to understand the economy at a more basic level rather than what’s put out for the general public to consume in the often overly simplified terms.
For example, the condition of the economy vs the Fed raising rates will be interesting.
The Fed is trying to slow the economy but much of the inflation problem is supply side related.
