Posted on 08/01/2011 7:10:53 AM PDT by blam
Does It Make Sense To Talk About The U.S. Economy Being In A Recession?
Philip Greenspun, philip.greenspun.com
Aug. 1, 2011, 6:25 AM
Now that the world economy is so tightly linked, what does it mean for a single country to be in a “recession”? A recession implies that there is a business cycle within each country that inevitably expands and contracts. Thus if a country is “in recession”, without any changes in laws, education, tax rates, or attitudes, it will inevitably enjoy strong growth when the recession is over.
The world economy has never been in better shape than right now. You might not get that perspective from news articles, but of course they tend to focus on problem spots such as Greece, Ireland, the U.S., etc. There has been a huge amount of growth in the world economy since 2007 (chart).
If a country, such as the U.S., has a smaller economy than it did in 2007, does it make sense to say that country is “in a recession” or simply that whatever conditions are necessary for growth in the current world economy are not present in that country? Does it make sense to predict that next year will be different from this year in terms of a business’s willingness to invest in the U.S.?
The existence of growth generates inequality. In a subsistence economy, most people have about the same standard of living. Growth, however, will to an inequality of income and wealth. Rather than talk about recession or expansion of a particular economy, would it not make more sense to say that different regions of the world will enjoy a larger or smaller share of the world’s economy growth? Even within the U.S., the expansion periods have not been experienced
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(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Let’s see... Q1 was estimated at 1.9% growth and “revised” to 0.4%, and Q2 came out at 1.3%...
You’re doin’ a great job, Barky!
Does it make sense to whistle past the graveyard?
Sadly, it probably makes more sense to talk about the U.S. economy in a depression.
Is this guy frickin’ out of his mind?????
LLS
No, it doesn’t make sense because we haven’t had two consecutive quarters of negative growth. People need to shut the hell up already until that happens. Then feel free to complain all you want.
“Does it make sense to whistle past the graveyard?”
Only if you be knowing a tune dem ghosties be dancing to so da don’t be coming to get ya.
This douche is trying to get us to think ‘globally’. Another goon in the global imperialist, global govt goon squad.
Psyops, pure and simple.
Why does the writer tell it just like it is. We are in a depression.
I would rather say that half the world is in a depression and the other half has economies built on houses of cards.
I dream of the days when it was only a recession.
So....
What do people that don't believe the 'government' numbers do?
Would you allow them just a little grumble every now and then?
BTW, are you in charge?
There are plenty of people on the economic side that can dispute the numbers. Maybe we will go negative. We just haven’t yet.
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