Wikipedia has blocked editing ‘recession’ as people change definition
fortune.com
fortune.com
Truth is we will have to wait until 2023 or later to call this a recession.
My suspicion is this is all wallstreet's shenanigans. There is a growing labor rights movement and this climate makes it hard to pass any laws that support the movement. "Minimum wage caused low profits and an unrecoverable bear market" is the sentiment they want to spread (by they I mean the market makers and investment bankers of wallstreet).
Correct. This is exactly why the people who are altering the definition are entirely propagandists (sometimes known as politicians) and journalists. In this case, they work in unison because they happen to be on the same team at the moment, so journalists are hoping and begging the government to change the definition so that it provides them sufficient cover so that they don't have to write on their front pages that the economy entered into a recession, which is obviously bad for the cause. It's the tacit "Help me help you!" situation. Their approach is that if the government says it, by journalists' standards (for the moment, of course) that's good enough by itself to validate it. Voila!
This is all stupid anyway. Call it anything you want at anytime, it doesn't change reality.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200928131548/https://www.merri...
https://web.archive.org/web/20201014032220/https://www.merri...
That doesn’t mean we have to listen to them. It is not rational to disambiguate truth from fiction based on words you read on the internet. It’s especially irrational to trust the words more when they’re on website served from a domain name of a company that paid an employee to write them according to some quarterly editorial calendar and Trello board.
If you’re altering your behavior in response to changes in a reality you interpret based on the words of a 2015 Columbia journalism major, then you have bigger problems than whether your most-frequented news sites tell you we’re in a recession.
“Aesthetic” is my current bugbear.
Is it the case that because Merriam-Webster or the Oxford University Press decide arbitrarily to change the meaning of a word that we all have to concede to that authority? Is there room for another dictionary forum to exist? At what point does language diverge into different dialects because of this phenomena?
The fluidity of language really is fascinating to behold.
Ironically, it's the exact same media attention phenomenon that meant that some people who have longstanding and entirely sincere objections to undue emphasis placed on US institutions in Wikipedia rocked up this week to the Recession article to question whether the NBER definition has been given undue prominence for the last 15 years, and not some other time when the definition of recession wasn't a major news story with unfortunate implications for a certain political figure.
So longstanding that not a peep of complaint is heard when Democracts use it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsYGOAVqmQI
Or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a 2017 interview: "Our society has come to respect people, whatever their sexual preference," Ginsburg said. - https://freebeacon.com/courts/barrett-shredded-for-saying-se...
But I'm sure there's a very sophisticated, nuanced distinction I'm missing, that explains the different treatment as totally not partisan gaslighting. Starting with an explanation for why "preference" is considered changeable - I can't make myself prefer one food over another, but maybe I'm an exception.
Perhaps it was the work of time travellers desperate to create the impression that Amy Coney Barrett is not a born again liberal, or perhaps, if the extent of your knowledge of the debate is restricted to gotcha videos involving Democrat politicians from the Washington Free Beacon, you're not particularly qualified to tell people with a personal stake in the debate that they actually invented all the longstanding objections to "preference" to criticise a foreign judge's comments they were barely even aware of, that they're the ones indulging in partisan gaslighting...
Call it a "gotcha" video all you want, but it's clear to everyone else what it is - a plain as day demonstration of double standards.
Of course politicians being self-serving hypocrites isn't news, or limited to Democrats, as the Republicans demonstrated when they argued it isn't appropriate to make a Supreme Court appointment near the end of Obama's term, only to find it very appropriate when they got to appoint a judge.
What is news is that now dictionaries cooperate in their hypocrisy.
What is novel is your insistence that it makes more sense to assume dictionaries conspiring against conservative jurists are a more logical explanation for Merriam Webster adding an advisory warning to a definition other authoritative style guides cautioned about in 1991, 2003, and 2013 than it was headline news today, and lots of people asked so we looked into it. Some might say making a change three decades after others wasn't that rapid...
And what did they find? That the term was routinely used within the LGBT community and never remarked on as offensive [1,2]? Or did they neglect to apply even the minimum of scrutiny, and simply took the word of grievance experts and hypocritical politicians as gospel, and presented it as a majority, widely-held belief in their dictionary?
I should note even the implication that 'preference' implies choice is utterly made up - I prefer chocolate to carrots, and blues to polka, yet I cannot choose to change those preferences. Whereas I am currently oriented south, and it is trivial to change that and re-orient myself to face west instead.
> some other people making less scrutinised remarks
Not just "some other people" - Joe Biden used the term while running for president. A presidential candidate's statements are usually closely scrutinized.
You are fooling nobody who does not want to be fooled.
[1] https://www.dailywire.com/news/lgbt-websites-now-say-sexual-...
[2] https://thepostmillennial.com/sexual-preference-is-not-an-of...
You can quote all the "anti-woke" attack blogs you like (I hear there's a subgenre dedicated to quoting words that rappers use to argue that everyone else should use them too!), but when you insist that the issue was invented to trap Amy Coney Barrett some thirty years later, you're only fooling yourself.
(as an aside, it's amazing that when you start putting sexual orientation on an equal footing in terms of mutability and importance and civil rights implications to your preference for chocolate you can't grasp that might actually be the bit gay people don't like...)
Then I read Orwell's Politics and the English Language, and 1984.
After that, the fluidity of language appears to me to be more and more in the hands of lexicographers as Newspeak developers who work hand-in-glove (with Them, whom else? :P ) to form the new way of thinking. No more romantic notions of lexicography as the track record of a civilization's linguistic endeavours.
I am worried we will get another wave of censorship about "recession conspiracy".
Yup, without a doubt. Anyone talking about a recession will be an anti-biden conspiracy theorist. Then, shortly after the election, they will admit there is a recession but that they are doing a really good job combating it.
Examples:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/29/opinion/recession-not-for...
It is true, as the Biden folks argued, that the nation’s official recession arbiter, the National Bureau of Economic Research, has yet to call one, because it relies on many more signals. Still, it sure sounded as if the Biden team was splitting hairs. (It's a recession opinion)
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/opinion/recession-gdp-eco...
But we won’t be. That’s not how recessions are defined; more important, it’s not how they should be defined. It’s possible that the people who actually decide whether we’re in a recession — more about them in a minute — will eventually declare that a recession began in the United States in the first half of this year, although that’s unlikely given other economic data. But they won’t base their decision solely on whether we’ve had two successive quarters of falling real G.D.P. (It's not a recession opinion)
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/25/business/biden-remarks-re...
That is true — not every recession includes two full quarters of negative growth, and in 1947 the economy shrank for two quarters without a recession declaration. But typically, two quarters of contraction lead to a recession call. (It's a recession opinion)
Stock Market Drop Accelerated as Recession Seemed More Likely
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/business/stock-market-rec...
etc.
Personally I think we're in a recession and/or facing economic headwinds due to a lot of different factors. I also don't know that it matters. If Biden came out today and said "we're in a recession" what exactly has changed? What specific actions should be taken so that we're not in a recession? Should we never be in a recession? Is that possible? If we are in a recession then why is that the case? Can anyone even point to specific actions that any organization or person has taken to cause a recession? I mean the Russian invasion of Ukraine is for sure a big deal in the global economy. Interest rates rising is a big factor. Do we point to those and say "those caused a recession"? If we do, then what do we do about it? Lower interest rates and lift sanctions on Russia so we're no in a recession?
And recession discussions are all over mainstream news and extensively covered by journalists and bloggers so I'm really confused as to why anyone who is talking about a recession would be an anti-Biden conspiracy theorist. Is the entire US public square an anti-Biden conspiracy since everyone is talking about it?
The 'theory' that china deliberately manufactured and released covid is a conspiracy theory. I have not seen COVID called one, nor even, the idea that a lab in china was researching it, nor that its release is accidental.
There being a pandemic, that a lab is somewhere researching COVID, that a lab may have accidentally released COVID do not contain any conspiracies.
The phrase is a very clear term of art in my view: a conspiracy theory is a story about how the world works which places implausible conspiracies at the heart of its causal structure; in the manner of movie plots; and presents a paranoid style of reasoning in which major events, and their distal effects, are the deliberate decisions of a small number of people.
Conspiracy theories, and theorists, are by definition engaged in an epistemic vice; a pseudoscientific activity of explanation; a kind of intellectualised schizoprehnia.
It was a conspiracy theory, according to liberals, to believe that the vaccine would be mandatory and that it would not stop the disease.
Remember people saying that were called crazy not long ago.
It was a conspiracy that russia would invade ukraine according to conservatives until it happened.
Speculation gets you insulted until you are right.
Now if you say there is a recession biden worshippers will assume this is some kind of personal attack.
Which "conservatives" said Russia wouldn't invade? The realist view of IR is, largely, the conservative one -- and many conservatives were saying Russia was strongly inclined to engage in this sort of politics.
I have no idea what you're talking about. This just seems like apologetics for conspiracy theories.
"'They said' X was a conspiracy, and it isnt! When I say Y is, soon you'll find out it isnt too!".
Well 'They' didnt say it was; these mythologies of persecution reveal a lot.
2) its been claimed multiple times the vaccine could prevent the spread of covid or gaining it if I remember correctly.
3) fox news and many other groups claimed russia wouldn't invade. many disagreed but that is beside the point, we are talking about the slander of speculation.
4) that quote is a useless flanderization of my argument, I claimed many groups use the conspiracy argument to silence speculation.
as we see now its highly likely we are in recession, thats hardly a conspiracy theory I am pushing.
> It was a conspiracy theory, according to liberals, to believe that the vaccine would be mandatory and that it would not stop the disease.
> It was a conspiracy that russia would invade ukraine according to conservatives until it happened.
You appear to be agreeing with him? In any case, the use of "nutcase" isn't productive.
The whole point was to show that its a common tactic regardless of your "side" of the political spectrum to demonize speculations as foolish conspiracy theories.
I was attempting to avoid being biased.
Honestly? If you say "we're in a recession" and then it turns out it is or becomes a recession, it sounds like you were right. Not that you caused it.
Dig through google scholar using terms like "confidence" and "recession" to find many more.
Dig through google scholar using terms like "confidence" and "recession" to find many more.
Dig through google scholar using terms like "confidence" and "recession" to find many more.
It's reasonable to think that the fact of a recession is of more electoral consequence than the declaration; I'm a little curious if the common definition or the NBER definition correlates with incumbent (dis) advantage better.
Are we looking at different stock markets?
No better prediction of future profits, than current profits.
Do you have any evidence from that? Personally, I'm pro-union, etc.; but what you wrote sounds like a bias-affirming conspiracy theory.
Why do you repeat yourself? Friendly reminder that Bohemian Club was founded by the San Francisco Chronicle editorial staff of the 1860s.
Even Biden "declared" recessions before (in 2020) and people didn't start questioning him or any economist opining so.
But now we have opinions by economists getting 'fact checked". Oh, the irony if fact checkers would get downsized due to "uncertain economic times".
Any other administration but his and wed hear "We don't need an official pronouncement by the NBER to tell us we're in a recession!"
Maybe in the current conditions it feels like just propagandizing.
But labor growing at 5-6% and core CPI growing at 5-6% and unemployment being historically low are numbers that are very important to the Fed (commodities inflation and oil is not that important or the Fed would have done something in 2011-2014).
They're likely to keep hiking rates until actual pain and a real recession is felt and those inflation numbers fall closer to 2% and unemployment rises sharply. They aren't just trying to propagandize in order to address the labor movement, to hit their stated goals and numbers they need to break its back with a recession. We're just not there yet.
Although maybe in the future they'll consider this a double-dip recession and we just hit the first dip.
I'm sorry what? Profits now need to be reduced? That seem the opposite of economic growth.
The 1970s saw high inflation and low profits, suggesting that corporations were facing enough competition that they absorbed as much of the price shock as they could before they passed price hikes to the consumer.
Low unemployment points is a tight labor market, meaning there is also competition to get workers.
And the economy is hardly dominated by monopolies. Take a moment to tally where all of your money is spent, and see how many of those companies are anywhere near a monopoly. The vast majority of people's expenses is spent in competitive markets: housing, food, energy (no company is a monopoly in any of those markets - largest housing company has < 10% of market share, largest bank has < 20% of market, largest energy company has < 30% of market share).
Here is another take on the subject:
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/paul-krugman-mon...
>So high profits and high inflation suggests an economy dominated by monopolies,
then pivot to
>Competition has decreased throughout the economy.
Competition decreasing is a far cry proving "an economy dominated by monopolies," which is simply not true.
>Or, to take another measure, in 1999 there were 8,000 companies listed on USA stock markets, but now there are only 3,400 companies
That says more about stock markets than number of companies. Fortunately the Census Bureau tracks relevant facts (and there are more at the BLS), and their data puts literally millions more businesses in 2019 [1] (the last year they have data) than in 1999 [2].
And nothing in their data supports "suggests an economy dominated by monopolies".
Care to explain how you measure dominated? As is most of consumer money is spent there? As in the majority of businesses? As in what?
[1] https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/2019/econ/susb/2019-sus...
[2] https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/1999/econ/susb/1999-sus...
High inflation means values are simply bigger, with no other changes needed, so increased profits are exactly expected in high inflation (along with high revenues, high prices, high costs, high spending, .... that is the definition of inflation).
So your claim that larger numbers "suggests an economy dominated by monopolies" is demonstrably not true. It can merely be inflation with zero other changes.
Assume a company has gross margins of 100%, then they face a price surge in supplies, a price surge of 50%. If they are facing enough competition, they will pay the full cost of the price surge, lowering their gross margins to 50%. None of the price hike will be passed to the consumer.
This is economics 101, if the subject really interests you, there is plenty on the Internet that you can read on this subject.
Here’s an example that I have from a good source: Early on in the pandemic grocery stores started charging more for one food company’s products. This is a major, national brand. They hadn’t raised prices and the stuff they make wasn’t the kind of thing that flew off shelves like bread and tortillas did back then.
For many months this continued until the company said “screw it” and raised their own prices to match.
Clearly the competition between grocery stores didn’t have an effect. While the food producing company might have worried about the higher prices leading to less sales they couldn’t really do anything about it and decided they might as well take the profits instead.
First, gross margin is not net profit, which more accurately represents what a company could possibly absorb. Second, no industry has even gross margins near 100%; more accurate is around ~35% [1] .
Assume a company has actual net profits of 5% (more in line with actual net profits), and cost of goods (or labor) goes up 10-20% (and same for all their competitors, since all are sourcing goods in the same markets).
Then they pass cost on to consumers or go out of business.
This is a more accurate model using real world numbers from the current economy.
If I have more competition, I might trade off taking some of the hit from my increased costs while still passing some on to the consumer to offer a lower overall price than my competition and potentially increase my market share, which ideally still leads to greater profits due to increased sales.
Except your supplier.
I don't think this is true at all, look at the rise of "store brands" often time they are of lower quality and people still pick them because they are cheaper
As an example of a brand people to seek out, People do not buy Toyota brand because it is "fancy" they buy it because it has worked hard to cultivate a reputation for reliability across all of its market lines, where other brands have known to cut corners in quality to lower prices
For example, I will buy Brand name Advil not because the generic is less effective, but because every generic I have found is EXTREMELY bitter to me and the Brand name is not. This is an inactive ingredient, but it makes the product worth more to me, so I buy it.
In your mind I am just buying "for the brand name" when there are "perfectly good" alternatives out there, but to me the alternative are of inferior quality and or missing something I find to be important.
Under perfect competition the economic profits would approach zero.
But you can still have unlimited of accounting profits, even in a perfectly competitive market provided you are delivering enough value to customers with some sort of unique value proposition.
And if high profit means "innovation" it seems like "getting rid of high profit" is the wrong decision?
In other words, the supply is insufficient in the face of overwhelming demand, which is why prices increase in a functioning economy.
Inflation is always a result of monetary policy; if the cash in the system (low interest rates, quantitative easing, government stimulus, etc) is increased without a corresponding increase in output, then inflation will naturally occur because demand for goods and services will increase beyond the capacity of supply. (h/t Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman)
But, if economic output is actually decreasing because of those same economic policies (such as hiking interest rates or external factors such as war in Ukraine), then we can easily enter stagflation, which is stagnant growth with rampant inflation.
We've had three periods since WWII where inflation hit double digits: the period immediately following the war (1946-1948), 1974-1975 during the oil crisis, and 1979-1983 following Carter's disastrous presidency (partly what he inherited, and then he made it much, much worse).
In the last period (79-83), Paul Volcker immediately took strong action to control inflation by hiking interest rates through the roof. This caused immediate economic pain, but, in concert with lower taxes and reduced regulation, it succeeded in ushering in a strong bull market that lasted, by some definitions, decades.
That's why the central banks are acting strongly to reduce inflation by raising rates, assuming they have the stomach to keep it up even as it might force the economy into a temporary stall: controlling inflation by reducing the money supply through higher rates has historically made for a stronger economy in the near future, and rates can always be reduced to inject stimulus into the economy if needed.
Here's another Milton Friedman quote: "Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation."
Let’s go back to the Carter administration standard, then: The US economy is in a banana. Let’s hope it’s not a serious one.
It just doesn't filter through the bubble of propagandists and journalists that still mostly control our discourse. It's probably unpopular there.
1960Q2-1960Q3 - GDP grew, yet this is flagged as a recession.
1981Q3-1983Q1 - GPD grew consistently the entire time, yet this is one of the longer recessions on record.
1990Q3-1991Q2 - GDP only dropped for one quarter, then quickly rebounded, yet it is flagged as a long recession.
2020Q1-2020Q1 - This is flagged as recession, despite being less than a single quarter. By "two consecutive quarters definition, this recession started in 2019Q4 and lasted until 2021Q1. Yet the NBER doesn't flag it this way. If they were "playing politics," they would definitely have made this out to be a larger deal.
It's pretty clear the NBER has never relied entirely on GDP data to determine recessions. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many recessions with GDP growth.
> 1960Q2-1960Q3 - GDP grew, yet this is flagged as a recession.
1960-01-01: 542.648
1960-04-01: 541.08
1960-07-01: 545.604
1960-10-01: 540.197
1961-01-01: 545.018
> 2020Q1-2020Q1 - This is flagged as recession, despite being less than a single quarter. By "two consecutive quarters definition, this recession started in 2019Q4 and lasted until 2021Q1.
2019-10-01: 21694.458
2020-01-01: 21481.367
2020-04-01: 19477.444
2020-07-01: 21138.574
2020-10-01: 21477.597
2021-01-01: 22038.226
Check this out: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA (adjusted for inflation, adjusted for population).
But even with that chart, none of the previous three recessions started with, 'two consecutive quarters of GDP decline.' They may have been preceded by it, but that does not mark the start of any of those recessions. By that definition, the great financial crisis started in 2007Q2, which would be well over a year before the collapse of AIG and Lehman.
There's ample evidence on that chart that the NBER has remained consistent with their definitions over the year. Otherwise, the previous recession would have started at least a quarter earlier.
NBER in 2003:
> Q:The financial press often states the definition of a recession as two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP. How does that relate to the NBER's recession dating procedure?
> A: Most of the recessions identified by our procedures do consist of two or more quarters of declining real GDP, but not all of them. According to current data for 2001, the present recession falls into the general pattern, with three consecutive quarters of decline. Our procedure differs from the two-quarter rule in a number of ways. First, we use monthly indicators to arrive at a monthly chronology. Second, we use indicators subject to much less frequent revision. Third, we consider the depth of the decline in economic activity. Recall that our definition includes the phrase, "a significant decline in activity."
* https://web.archive.org/web/20030206100218/http://www.nber.o...
"Our procedure differs from the two-quarter rule in a number of ways."
What has changed is the ability for new accounts to edit war the definition due to recent debate in the US
Why? Because it's an election year in USA, recession is here, biden says it's not ( https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-says-no-surprise-... ), and definitions "have to be changed" for bidens words to be "true".
So, one side changes, the other side changes back, then again and again...
I think that's backwards from reality.
The definition used in the US for decades (the NBER one, founded 1920) would say no recession yet. The naive, yet incorrect, definition some people want to change to (2 quarters) would make it a recession.
That's the standard used for as long as I remember, until it wasn't. It's called "moving the goalposts."
Not in the US. Your memory doesn't trump facts.
Here's [1] a 1980s report on it.
Here's [2] the Jul 31, 2002 Nevada Daily Mail newspaper, stating the same thing: "The National Bureau of Economic Research, the recognized arbiter of when recession begin and end,....."
Here's [3] a 1983 news paper article explaining it again, same thing.
Here's [4] the NBER on the 1970s recession.
Here's [5] a modern Bloomberg article saying the same thing.
Here's [6] the current NBER page with the definition. Here's [7] the same page from 2020 (saved at internet archive). Same definition then.
Here [8] is the NBER definition from 1999, cached from their website as it was shown in 1999: "he NBER does not define a recession in terms of two consecutive quarters of decline in real GNP. Rather, a recession is a recurring period of decline in total output, income, employment, and trade, usually lasting from six months to a year, and marked by widespread contractions in many sectors of the economy."
Where did you learn your standard, and when did you learn it?
In fact, if you spend much time looking through old newspapers (the google link I gave you allows it) you can find that the NBER has been the arbiter for a long, long time.
Do you still not believe this is how it's been done a long time?
[1] https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c0688/c0688.pdf
[2] https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1908&dat=20020731&id=...
[3] https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=348&dat=19830711&id=H...
[4] https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c9101/c9101.pdf
[5] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-12/no-us-rec...
[6] https://www.nber.org/business-cycle-dating-procedure-frequen...
[7] https://web.archive.org/web/20201101011155/https://www.nber....
[8] https://web.archive.org/web/19990221024645/http://nber.org/c...
News. Probably during H.W. Bush.
Here's an article from 2008 talking about the 2 quarter rule of thumb. Apparently it's been around since 1974.
https://money.cnn.com/2008/05/05/news/economy/recession/
Here's one from 1998 using the 2 month definition.
https://money.cnn.com/2001/09/28/economy/economy/index.htm
Here's the NYT defining it the same way in 1974. From the text:
The bureau considers a recession to have occurred when there has been an ettended substantial, and widespread decline in aggregate economic activity—or, duration, depth, and diffusion. The bureau has not specified the breakpoints which distinguish recessions from milder slowdowns. Its experts depend rather on comparisons of current cyclical trends with what happened during previous business cycles, a process that involves some qualitative judgment and interpretation of cyclical trends.
Seems the NBER was pretty wishy washy about it back then too.
The bureau has not specified the breakpoints which distinguish recessions from milder slowdowns.
If it's been around since the 1920s, why isn't it mentioned in 1974? Maybe the NYT dropped the ball.
The NYT goes on to opine:
A rough translation of the bureau's qualitative, definition of a recession into a quantitative one, that almost anyone can use, might run like this:
In terms of duration—declines in real G.N.P. for 2 consecutive quarters; a decline in industrial production over a six‐month period.
There's your 2 quarters boundaries, back in 1974.
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/12/01/archives/the-changing-bus...
It's pretty evident that both have been around a long time and politicians, their news allies and political operatives push whichever one is most convenient. In today's case, the (current?) NBER definition means we aren't currently in a recession (yet), which benefits the current sitting president, briefly.
FYI, I can't seem to find in your first link from 1983 where it actually defines a recession. Perhaps you can quote it. I stopped reading your links after the first one didn't seem to have any references to your claim, but I might have missed it. My eyes started to glaze over a bit, business cycles in 1980 is pretty dry reading.
That article states exactly what I did: "Ignorance about recessions has taken hold because of a simplistic idea that a recession is two successive quarterly declines in gross domestic product (GDP), a measure of the nation's output."
It states the 1974 rule was not two quarters, but over time people forgot to use the rest of the rules. So this completely backs up the "it is not simply 2 quarters" definitions.
>Here's one from 1998 using the 2 month definition.
That's not two month, and it's also not using GDP, which is what people keep wanting it to be. It states "commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction" - what is contraction? Decline in many variables, which is what the NBER uses - GDP, and/or GNP, and/or labor markets, and/or sales/purchasing, .....
>Here's the NYT defining it the same way in 1974.
That article also explicitly states that the NBER defines the start and end: "Generally, the designation of recession periods and the beginning and ending dates established by the National Bureau of Economic. Research, a private research agency, are accepted, by both Government and private economists." It then goes on to say how NBER has managed this since the 1920s.
Did you even read those links you posted?
They pretty much back up that the NBER has been the arbiter of recessions in the US.
>politicians, their news allies and political operatives push whichever one is most convenient
Yes politicians do push things that are not true because people ignorant of the correct nuance follow their tribe. But that does not change the truth or underlying fact of the matter.
Seems the NBER was pretty wishy washy about it back then too.
The bureau has not specified the breakpoints which distinguish recessions from milder slowdowns.
If it's been around since the 1920s, why isn't it mentioned in 1974? Maybe the NYT dropped the ball.
The NYT goes on to opine:
A rough translation of the bureau's qualitative, definition of a recession into a quantitative one, that almost anyone can use, might run like this:
In terms of duration—declines in real G.N.P. for 2 consecutive quarters; a decline in industrial production over a six‐month period.
There's your 2 quarters boundaries, back in 1974.
It's pretty obvious that people are trying really hard to not call it a recession for pretty obvious reasons: midterms. To deny the 2 quarter rule of thumb never existed is pretty transparent to most people. Ask yourself this, why would someone want to change the definition on Wikipedia? Why now?
2+2=5
It's not wishy washy. It's nuanced, and takes experts to carefully assess. There is no simple check one of many indicators to some fixed threshold over all of time definition.
I get you don't like the facts, so you use wishy-washy as your description.
>why isn't it mentioned in 1974? Maybe the NYT dropped the ball.
From the 1974 article: "Generally, the designation of recession periods and the beginning and ending dates established by the National Bureau of Economic. Research, a private research agency, are accepted, by both Government and private economists. For more than 50 years, the bureau has studied alternating periods of business expansion and contraction in order to chart their progress, identify cyclical peaks and troughs, and analyze causes of economic fluctuations."
"In the nineteen‐twenties, when the bureau work, was getting under way, periods of decline were usually called depressions. As time went on and declines in economic activity became less severe, the term recession became more common. A more neutral term, contraction, is also sometimes used."
So it's clearly mentioned. Are you even reading the articles?
>In terms of duration—declines in real G.N.P. for 2 consecutive quarters; a decline in industrial production over a six‐month period.
> There's your 2 quarters boundaries, back in 1974.
Yes, if you ignore every other sentence in the article and pull one out of context that suits you, then yes, I can see how you got your beliefs.
>to deny the 2 quarter rule of thumb never existed is pretty transparent to most people.
To deny that the rule of thumb is not sufficient, has never been sufficient, and has always relied on a more nuanced assessment is simply spreading more ignorance for political reasons. I get that such ignorance works for a populace desiring outrage. To double down on it when presented with the facts is simply willful ignorance, an entire bigger level.
There are many "rules of thumb," but pretty much zero of them capture the entire nuance needed for the item at hand, which is why they are rules of thumb. Rule of 72 for compound interest works, somewhat, as long as you stay near 7-10% interest. Chemical reaction speed doubling every 10 degrees Celsius works, as long as you stay near room temperature and pressure and don't hit certain odd cases. The ideal gas law works, but only again in special cases. 'i' before 'e' except after 'c' works, except when it doesn't.
This is the same thing. Every rule of thumb is a rough idea, but never the final answer.
2 quarters may be a rule of thumb, but it is not a the definition. It's too coarse.
Also, if you're going to post articles, please read them first.
Show me in the 1974 NYT article where the NBER defines a recession.
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3579988-is-there-a-recess...
Upon further research, it seems pretty shady. According to this, one of their members took $100K from Uber to write beneficial articles on them through the org. Seems they also don't confirm a recession until a year has past. It's telling that you give them such credence.
You just quoted the fact that the NBER defines when is is a recession: "The bureau considers a recession to have occurred when there has been an extended substantial, and widespread decline in aggregate economic activity—or, duration, depth, and diffusion. The bureau has not specified the breakpoints which distinguish recessions from milder slowdowns. Its experts depend rather on comparisons of current cyclical trends with what happened during previous business cycles, a process that involves some qualitative judgment and interpretation of cyclical trends."
Each economic environment may have specific factors that make it a recession or not, and there is not published any simple rule. There is no way you (or I) would be able to understand the nuance they consider - they even state it's based on each event so they can consider the many, many factors before calling one.
Since there is no rule as simple as the two quarter belief, the NYT article does not state such a simplistic rule. A complex rule would be beyond the readership of the NYT, so they would not write it out anyways.
If you really cared to learn, I suspect there's tons of papers, and likely even past meetings minutes, on how each one was decided. If you learn enough to understand those, then you might understand why there is such nuance.
Are we now in agreement that recessions in the US have not been defined according to a simple 2 quarter rule now? And that the NBER has historically been the group of experts that makes the determination? Or do you still disagree that is how it have been done for a long time now?
>Upon further research, it seems pretty shady.
Yes, you cannot remove the conspiracies from someone that really wants one. Your 5 minute research surely surpasses the quality of the rest of the entire profession.
> It's telling that you give them such credence.
I find experts more reliable than uneducated internet mobs.
Two negative quarters has never been the definition in the US. NBER in 2003:
> Q:The financial press often states the definition of a recession as two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP. How does that relate to the NBER's recession dating procedure?
> A: Most of the recessions identified by our procedures do consist of two or more quarters of declining real GDP, but not all of them. According to current data for 2001, the present recession falls into the general pattern, with three consecutive quarters of decline. Our procedure differs from the two-quarter rule in a number of ways. First, we use monthly indicators to arrive at a monthly chronology. Second, we use indicators subject to much less frequent revision. Third, we consider the depth of the decline in economic activity. Recall that our definition includes the phrase, "a significant decline in activity."
* https://web.archive.org/web/20030206100218/http://www.nber.o...
"Our procedure differs from the two-quarter rule in a number of ways."
You'll probably find similar verbiage on NBER's site in 2022.
So it was made US-centric, in fact US current events centric, and now as the title says "Wikipedia has blocked editing".
I chose a recession history from 2019 - not cherrypicked, just random, you are welcome to try also, and it talks about two negative quarters: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Recession&oldid=9...
Last week I corrected people implying that wikipedia editors were removing the 'two quarters history' and now I am correcting people that claim we suddenly added it in.
... you can literally look it up for yourself...
The 2022 wikipedia entry for Recession says that two consecutive quarters of negative growth is the common definition, says this is not universally accepted, and gives the NBER definition also.
The original 2007 wikipedia entry for Recession says that two consecutive quarters of negative growth is the common definition, says this is not universally accepted, and gives the NBER definition also, which is identical to the 2022 NBER definition.
The attempt to suddenly change it now feels quixotic.
Reminds me of the fight over the Titanics last lifeboat.
Everyone knows its all broken, that already no one can pay their debts, millions are homeless and US interests have started their march to double digits.
But the most important thing right now is to scrape a few more moments believing there is hope by redefining the meaning of proper fked.
1. Middle East, SE Asia, and South America all have inflation above 50%.
2. Russia vs west. China vs. the US (Taiwan) Turkey vs. Iran (Syria, Armenia) Venezuela vs. itself
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/15/in-the-u-s-...
This source is lacking, but the only countries above 50% inflation I can find are Turkey and Argentina. Could you point me in the direction of where you got your numbers?
Meanwhile, in real life.. https://www.reuters.com/technology/oracle-starts-job-cuts-us...
This article reports accurately (as far as I can tell) what different people are saying/tweeting about the issue, but stops short of confirming themselves whether or not the definitions were actually changed recently. Which is easily possible using the version history (maybe with a "according to the version history" disclaimer). Instead readers have to rely on the quote from the Wikipedia editor, which some people probably won't.
This leaves people to make their own conclusions based on the priors.
(article title has this information but not the submission title)
I'd like to add that this is a common move Wikipedia does for "hot" articles to alleviate some moderation pressure.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jul/27/instagram-...
Whether or not the U.S. is actually in a recession might still be up for debate. But I’d argue that it’s pretty clear what’s happening to the credibility of online “fact-checking” sources.
Impartiality generally seems to be a very difficult subject.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PolitiFact#Allegations_of_poli...
PolitiFact was three times as likely to rank statements from Republicans as “Pants on Fire,” and twice as likely to rank statements from Democrats as “Entirely True.”
That's not a point of bias unless you can prove Republicans lie less.
Because it's not necessarily either bais or that Republicans lie more, it could also be that politifact is asked to rate statements that are obvious lies by Republicans more often.
Agreed, the statements that Politifact chooses to cover are contentious and have high visibility. In the specific set of data points that were used to evaluate Politifact, a larger percentage of the statements made by Republicans are classified lies and more harshly (see article below from 2011). This proves nothing about the overall number of lies made by individuals within the Republican and Democrat parties. There are numerous ways this sort of situation within Politifact can come about even after excluding bias from Politifact. For example, a unique time period in which a small number of individuals who identify as Republicans are independently making more outrageous claims which skews the result. Or a time period in which a specific talking point (generally proven false) is being pushed as a narrative by a portion of a party but not a majority of the party (e.g., the 2020 election was stolen, or Donald Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 elections).
Point being, reaching the conclusion that Republicans lie more via Politifact or the findings of the original study is a fallacy. And reaching the conclusion that Politifact is biased is also a fallacy.
The original article here: https://archive.ph/Drhw
I know plenty of Republicans who think Democrats lie more and I know plenty of Democrats who think Republicans lie more. But I wouldn't justify a false compromise through anecdotal evidence.
Corruption and Government: Causes, Consequences
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1107441099/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
The Quest for Good Governance: How Societies Develop Control of Corruption
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1107534577/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
They both suggest that a systemic problem is, simply systemic -- it crosses multiple institutions and it is broadly accepted. One way to judge the completeness of the corruption of the system is to look at what is missing: how many groups are not fighting against corruption. How many groups are bought into the system? Obviously the problem is less systemic in places where powerful institutions are actively fighting against corruption.
I do concede I should have been clearer in my original comment.
> [T]he definition read by Siri [...] includes an important word that the narrator glosses over, namely "generally." In other words, the one-sentence definition Siri provided is not a closed answer. It’s a general guidance that includes exceptions.
PolitiFact does discuss why the NBER definition is more nuanced than the 2-quarter heuristic, but this is mere exposition behind their main point.
First 5 seconds of the video: "So the White House is now trying to protect Joe Biden by changing the definition of the word recession"
Content of the video: Uses siri's definition which states a recession is "...generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters." The poster ignores the 'generally' when comparing to the White House website which states that the two quarter definition is not official. Followed by a rap battle meme.
Obvious intent of video: Paints a narrative that the white house is changing definitions of words to fit their needs.
Title of the politifact article: "No, the White House didn’t change the definition of “recession” "
Content of the politifact article: The white house didn't change the definition of recession.
Reality: The White House didn't change the definition of recession.
So what exactly is the credibility issue here?
That claim is false, and just propaganda. The WH may be using an official definition which is convenient for them, vs. some other that is also acceptable. That may be true.
But they arent changing the definition of anything. Theyre actually using the standard one for the relevant area of expertise.
In this case, the more accurate statement would be that the Whitehouse is changing the definition that they use. But they present the Twitter lowest common denominator of discourse as the "fact" to be checked.
I mean, is politifact misbehaving here when clearly, everyone who's not read their article has actually the same misunderstanding about the issue? That does seem to warrant their view, right?
The reason we care about a recession is that it's a recession. The "2-quaters" definition isn't what we care about, right?
It's extremely odd to accuse the WH of misusing definitions to defend a position both consistent with the mainstream technical definition *AND* the spirit of all possible definitions.
People still clinging to this criticism of the WH seem not understand why this criticism is false. It's both false *and* its misleading. T
If there’s an article out there in which PolitiFact debunked (let alone flagged) claims of, say, “transitory inflation”, I’ll stand corrected.
It sure as heck seemed like you were all of one comment ago. I'm pretty sure that 999 out of 1000 people reading your previous comment heard something like "PolitiFact said this claim about a possible recession was false, even though it used a dictionary definition of the term!"
But now it appears that PolitiFact was not doing that at all, but was instead taking issue with the claim that the White House was "changing the definition" of recession, and now you're saying you're not defending that claim and falling back to unrelated generalities.
So now I have no idea what your original point was supposed to be. Is it the White House changing definitions is false and easily debunkable but supports some broader point that you believe is more important? And is that what we were supposed to understand from your first comment? This is just checking every box for being a bad argument.
I understood GP to mean that it's a bit strange to have random groups define fake news or not based on deviations from a specific dictionary. If my dictionary says recession is two quarters, and yours says it's three, we can't use just this to decide that something is fake news, and it's especially dangerous to make arbitrary decision on which dictionary is actually 'not fake'.
I guess I'm the 1 / 1000 and actually have trouble understanding your arguments.
What exactly is difficult to understand about that?
The fact the rest of the world has always used a different definition (and still does) is moot.
It also follows up a quote of the definition used by the video with a statement that they’ve flagged it. To me, that’s a clear indication the definition is an important part of the reason for flagging.
> To me, that’s a clear indication the definition is an important part of the reason for flagging.
The article is also titled 'No, the White House didn’t change the definition of “recession”' To me, that's a clear indication of what the most important (and valid) reason for flagging was.
Thank you for taking the time to look at this, as the commenter had led me to believe PolitiFact was arguing about a totally different claim.
Both the video and authors of the article use the same definition. The article notes that the video "includes an important word that the narrator glosses over" (hint its the word 'generally').
> This is partly the justification for them declaring the video as false
Using a different definition is not their justification (partly because you just made this connection up). They ruled the post as false because it stated the White House was changing the definition of 'recession' when it was not.
> flagging it as potentially harmful misinformation.
The intent of the video is clearly to indicate the White House is changing definitions to suit their narrative. In reality this was not the case. The effect is discrediting or undermining the trust in the white house. If you think this isn't potentially harmful, that might speak more to your political inclinations than the objective reality.
> The overreaction alone is sufficient for me to question the website’s priorities.
Now this is ironic.
Topics that are currently heavily debated/ in the news may lead to a low s/n ratio on wikipedia. Those topics temporarily can get locked; as one of a spectrum of measures that can be used to remedy these kinds of situation. It happens many times a day.
> It looks like you're selecting something from Wikipedia! Remember, Wikipedia isn't a source - cite the source Wikipedia uses instead, and don't cite unsourced information at all!
The UK government for example recently price-capped certain products that are used to measure inflation. At least this redefinition in the US is more public.
Ultimately, gate-keep the definition all you like. The cost of living has pushed the working class to the breaking point, it doesn't matter what you call that - the experience is most definitely real.
>due to selection bias, those "services" and the people providing them end up being heavily on one side of the political spectrum
>deus ex machina (no, not really)
>wonder why people on the other side of the political spectrum refuse to trust your fact-checking "services"/media
Online user-generated-content moderation systems (whether upvoting/downvoting, Slashdot-style, etc.) are just a type of "fact-checking" in practice.
When the ability/opportunity to act as a moderator within such a system depends on conforming with the community, then biases can become repeatedly amplified over time, and the results of such moderation become questionable to a sizable part of the population.
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I pretty much made all the inferences I will ever need about the valley-type demographics back then. Nothing since has disproved any of them.
I think a recession is here.
Recessions in general see GDP down and unemployment up. Right now GDP is down but employment is also down. This could potentially prevent or limit the impact of the recessionary cycle where layoffs reduce demand which brings down profits and GDP. Additionally, corporate profits and cash reserves are high while low labor force participation and problems hiring are making layoffs undesirable. While consumer confidence is down economic demand remains high at least for now. All this shows the current economic situation to be extremely unusual and quite apart from previous recessions whether it gets labeled as such or not.
I think you mean unemployment is also down? Also work force participation is currently high, not low.
But I get what you're saying, it's a very unusual situation. I think that's because this has nothing to do with the usual economic cycle. It's a very bouncy snap-back from the lockdown that's seen a boom in demand, a bust in supply, heavy stimulus. The feedback relationships between the economic indicators just aren't working as they usually do.
Personally I think this recession will be relatively short. As I said it's overcorrections from the snap back after the pandemic, but things will settle down. That doesn't mean there won't be pain, there will, but hopefully it will be fairly short term.