likeabird03
Active Member
No they weren't. Of course there're an infinite number of indicators so it's always easy to pick more of the ones that agree with a particular agenda to prove a point. My point is we accept the economy as it is so we can feed ourselves and we play politics on our own time. That means we put a lot of stock in the GDP and unemployment, both of which were better in early 2008 than in late 2007....Most of the major economic indicators were pointing downward by early 2008...
Sure, we can also point to total private wealth (very important) which had fallen in early '08, but that had already been going on for year anyway so NBER's Dec. 07 date was at best arbitrary and capricious, and at worst politically mendacious.
GDP contracted in the first quarter of 2008, a fact I already illustrated, so that's an indicator that was pointing down, and a pretty important and broad indicator at that. Payrolls were contracting by early 2008, another hugely important indicator.
Industrial production was declining starting that quarter -
US Data Wrap-Up: Construction, Import Prices and Production in January « FXTimes – Forex News, Commentaries, Technical Analysis, Education, Live Events, and more!
Housing starts were continuing on their long drawn out decline-
So expat, I think that paints a pretty accurate overall picture. Unless you care to share any monthly data (not-rolling 12 mos averages or y/y averages since we're in a conversation about pinpointing it to a particular month/quarter) that shows otherwise.