Are we in a recession ?
> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy shrank during the closing months of 2007 for the first time in six years, the Commerce Department confirmed on Thursday, hurt by the steepest slump in housing since 1981.
> But it bounced back to record modest growth in 2008, avoiding back-to-back quarters of decline that would have met a popular definition of recession.
> The department sharply revised its estimate for fourth-quarter performance to show gross domestic product, or GDP, contracted 0.2 percent -- rather than growing 0.6 percent as it previously reported.
And later that year of 2008:
> Growth resumed in the first quarter of 2008, however, with GDP rising at a 0.9 percent rate that accelerated to 1.9 percent in the second quarter as government stimulus payments began to flow.
The wheels of recession were in motion since 2006, its head cropped up during the later quarters of 2007 and completely exploded in late-2008.
Look at all the macroeconomic indicators right now, inflation, energy costs, customer spending, etc., do you really believe we are not way into the wheels of a recession?
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-gdp-revisions...
I think you left out unemployment from that list because it doesn’t fit the message. How many recessions happen with a 3% unemployment rate?
The economy is odd the last couple years. I don’t know that the usual data points help predict as well as they might normally.
> In December 2007, the national unemployment rate was 5.0 percent, and it had been at or below that rate for the previous 30 months. [1]
[1] https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2012/recession/pdf/recession_b...
However, we have been in a sector correction for nearly a year now with it beginning to affect high growth cloud tech a year ago and moving into tech generally since. In general growth has done poorly as yields have risen and people have moved into other assets. Many over-leveraged investors have had to liquidate to stay solvent (due to not only falling asset prices but the cost for margin has rising extensively) further driving down prices.
But some large parts of the economy are operating much like they would if we were in one. Other large parts are not.