The U.S. May Already Be in a Recession

bloomberg.com

16 points·sndean··3 comments

> It might seem crazy to talk about a recession when jobs are plentiful. Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced a decline in the February unemployment rate to 3.5%, tying a 50-year low.

Policy makers cling to the jobs numbers for dear life, leading indicators be damned, right up to the point that everyone realizes the obvious.

It happens every single time. Jobs numbers tell you where you've been, not where you're going.

It's also depressing that we've moved the goalposts so much in term of unemployment measurement. We used to report U6, now we only report U3 [1]. How we calculate U3 is also suspect.

Many businesses don't allow > 30h because they'd have to offer benefits. Cost of living has skyrocketed while inflation adjusted wages have decreased over time for 99%.

We are massively undercounting the discouraged and underemployed (can't find full-time work).

[1] https://www.hrcapitalist.com/2017/01/know-your-hr-stuff-the-...

The current US government will do everything to keep the stock market music playing

- Fed will start directly buy equity of companies https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/business/economy/fed-coro...

- Helicopter money https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bern...

We might not see a recession, but completely lose of the credibility of US financial system.

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