If we get another quarter of negative growth we are in RECESSION. That won't happen. They just got finished readjusting the numbers to make sure that doesn't happen. Q1 numbers were revised from -1.7% to -2.9% to cram all the loss into one quarter. Now all they need to do is show any growth at all in Q2 to claim there is no recession. Here's how it works:
Actual numbers:
Q1 | -1.7%
Q2 | -1.1%
Total | -2.8%
Two consecutive quarters of decline = Recession
Modified Numbers:
Q1 | -2.9%
Q2 | +0.1%
Total | -2.8%
One quarter of decline and one quarter of growth = NO Recession
“President Obama made an unscheduled trip to a D.C.-based tech start-up to cheer about the rosy jobs numbers released this morning and promote his economic strategy”
Death knell to that company. 6 years and Obama hasn’t supported a successful company.
Great example hoodat!
In addition there have been changes to the 'official' definition of recession:
The NBER which determines the beginning and ending of a recession no longer uses the classic 2 quarter definition.
Per the NBER:
"The committee's procedure for identifying turning points differs from the two-quarter rule in a number of ways.
First, we do not identify economic activity solely with real GDP and real GDI, but use a range of other indicators as well.
Second, we place considerable emphasis on monthly indicators in arriving at a monthly chronology.
Third, we consider the depth of the decline in economic activity. Recall that our definition includes the phrase, "a significant decline in activity."
Fourth, in examining the behavior of domestic production, we consider not only the conventional product-side GDP estimates, but also the conceptually equivalent income-side GDI estimates. The differences between these two sets of estimates were particularly evident in the recessions of 2001 and 2007-2009."
The new definition contains a lot of fuzzy metrics which are open to political manipulation.