Thursday, May 29, 2008

Recession?

Now I went back and checked the numbers for the past 50 years and didn't find a single case of a recession—as calculated by the National Bureau of Economic Research—that started with or contained two straight quarters of positive GDP growth, much less three quarters. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, former Federal Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan admitted he was puzzled that the economy hasn't fallen off a cliff, given the housing crisis, credit crunch, and oil price surge. He told the FT: "A recession is characterized by significant discontinuities in the data.... It started off that way—there was a period of sharp discontinuity from December to March. But then it stopped.... No one knows how this tug of war will end—specifically, whether the financial crisis will end before it drags down the real economy." — James Pethokoukis

2 comments:

vnjagvet said...
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vnjagvet said...

We've been in the "Bush recession" since January, 2001.

Don't you know Charley he has presided over "the worst economy since the depression"?

What with 5% unemployment and annual inflation at about 3%, and net positive GDP growth so far this year, what's a democrat to do? They have an election to win, after all.

I tell you hope and change is what we need.