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Comment by DataGata | Hacker News Reader

A recession is technically two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. If we're able to beat this thing by June, we might be able to beat a "technical" recession. Something like -10% GDPg/quarter followed by 1% GDPg/quarter. Not technically a recession!

1) We can expect unemployment in the teen %s. Some economists think we can get as high as 30%.

2) It will be worse

3) Consensus is a big V-shaped dip, assuming that the virus is contained, managed, tested and tracked.

4) Stimulus bills, debt relief-- things they've all, for the most part, already done.

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There is no "technical" definition of a recession. The "two consecutive quarters" thing is just one, among many hotly debated, ways to try to define it. Among other economists, a recession is defined by unemployment rate, while others like the IMF define it more broadly as just an arbitrary period of bad macroeconomics.

The NBER, which is the main US body that previously used the "two consecutive quarters" definition, no longer uses that definition and now says a recession is defined 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."

By that definition, we may already be in a recession.

It will be technically a recession, due to the current timing. March in Q1 and April in Q2, which means both quarters will see negative growth. We might still bounce back relatively soon, but yeah, it will be a recession no matter what.

Not to be a downer, but what would beating this thing by x look like? Perhaps a drug combination that prevents COVID turning into ARDS, so it becomes a confluence of nasty flu symptoms rather than a silent killer?

Otherwise it seems the only way we beat this thing is with a vaccine, and that means a series of consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth... like 4 ~ 8 of them, at best.

Is there consensus on when we might see the bottom of the V?

I'm not qualified to give a long answer, but short answer (as far as I can tell): no

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