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Comment by tootie | Hacker News Reader

That definition was only ever a rule of thumb. The fact is, you can't define it. It's like setting a temperature that is officially "cold". The current economic indicators are almost completely unprecedented in the growth is weak, inflation is very high and yet employment remains historically strong. As much as GDP represents the broadest indicator of economic health, if you're looking for a headline to apply to the masses, it's going to be when we see broad-based negative wealth effects in which case inflation and employment/wages are the most important indicators and they're flying in opposite directions right now. Declaring that this is or isn't a recession is essentially irrelevant. It's officially cold when you feel cold.

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In the US, the NBER is the institution that calls recessions. The NBER has never once failed to call two consecutive quarters of negative growth as a recession. It's a foregone conclusion at this point.

But wait, according to the mainstream media now, we shouldn't listen to the NBER either, they're all just a bunch of "white economists":

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/30/economy/recession-economists-...

CNN headline: Who decides if the US is in a recession? Eight White economists you've never heard of

Is this a joke? It's like something you'd overhear at brunch from a group of co-eds

Now recessions are racists then?

That wouldn't be the implication of a title like that and I suspect you know you're being disingenuous. It would mean that some of our most important decisions are being made by people from a single background that doesn't reflect the makeup of their stakeholders, the American public.

As a thought exercise, would you think it's not notable if the 8 person board was entirely female .. or entirely black?

I would absolutely think it was notable because if I saw “Women Economists” or “Black Economists” I would obviously be concerned the women or black economists are being treated badly.

It’s shocking that you somehow think race or gender can effect the categorization by economists of economic conditions. It’s fairly quantitative situation and I’m at a loss how different backgrounds would effect that analysis.

I mean in your mind ... if all the economists you saw in leadership positions in the US were black I suspect you would think that's notable. That was the thought exercise I was asking you to do.

Black unemployment vs White?

Would a black economist measure black unemployment or white unemployment differently?

>Now recessions are racists then?

Everything else is, so why not?

CNN in January 2020: "Coronavirus task force another example of Trump administration's lack of diversity" <https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/30/politics/donald-trump-coronav...>

Was that actually the headline before?

The title I get is the same minus the "white". I wonder if it's A/B testing.

https://imgur.com/a/yW4IXum

I took a screenshot as I had a hunch it would be changed once enough people saw it.

Edit: shows up without the “White” also for me now:

https://imgur.com/a/84X6RKj

I also saw the original headline that said:

> Who decides if the US is in a recession. Eight White economists you've never heard of.

It reads like racism to me.

I mean, CNN is basically the left version of Fox News, it’s not representative of center media.

That's not really a fair comparison. CNN sometimes plays up controversy for eyeballs, but Fox is an outright manipulator. Tucker Carlson is touting fascism and Sean Hannity was literally taking phone calls from the Oval Office asking what they wanted him to say on air. They are also being sued for libel for promoting baseless election fraud conspiracy theories. Saying they're equivalent is like saying a pigeon is like a squid because they both have a beak.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jul/04/fox-oan-newsma... https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/29/politics/hannity-text-message... https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/tucker-carlson-has-s...

It's closer to the center than the other major news network, MSNBC.

I upvoted you because downvoting to disagree is dumb, but I disagree, CNN is totally way far left.

CNN is indeed way far left. But there are three major news networks - Fox, CNN and MSNBC. Of those, Fox is pretty far right, CNN is far left, and MSNBC is farther left than CNN.

https://adfontesmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Media-B...

Do you have an example of "center media"? Asking because I earnestly want some of that.

I usually just read the AP or Reuters. FiveThirtyEight is definitely liberal but I appreciate their numbers perspective as well.

Here's a couple media bias charts. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/media-literacy/2021/sh...

Like other commenter said, AP and Reuters are best at being center / neutral for now.

The Financial Times is relatively centrist in their coverage.

What is a recession if not loss of buying power and material wellbeing?

How is more people working for less pay a counterargument against recession.?

All things being equal, more people working is a an increase in buying power. The decreased buying power of wages is only negative relative to the amount people being paid a wage. Which itself is a function of both employment opportunity and size of the labor force. The recent rise in inflation is definitely correlated with a rise in wages albeit at a slightly lower rate resulting in a roughly 1% lag in the past year. If you map out wages paid per GDP you can get an idea of how much of a share of economic growth has been going to workers and it's a been a pretty solid, steady decline since 1970:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=Sfun

So, that sucks, but it doesn't make a useful definition of recession. This is the result of massive, global macroeconomic forces. It's basically a slow reset of the post-WWII global order.

Im not sure I follow your argument.

>All things being equal, more people working is a an increase in buying power.

This isnt an absolute. If you have 1 person working for $1/day and go to 2 people for $0.5/day, buying power hasn't changed.

You can have more people working, and people working longer, for less and less material goods.

I think any meaningful definition of economic growth/recession must address the fundamental question of is there more material goods and wellbeing in a country today than yesterday.

I agree that the allocation of those goods is a separate question entirely.

>This is the result of massive, global macroeconomic forces. It's basically a slow reset of the post-WWII global order.

I think that what we are seeing is the start of a realization that part of historic GDP growth was actually a fiction, in that more tangible goods were not produced.

This is why a small increase in wages sent inflation through the roof.

In theory, US real GDP per capita has gone up 33% since 2000[1]. This looks fine on paper as long as the growth is just accumulating in a bank account. Once people actually try to consume more, it becomes obvious that there isn't 33% more stuff to buy.

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