Are we or Are we not in a recession?

[random3434]

I do understand.

However, that's not the discussion. The discussion is whether or not we're in a recession. And we aren't.

The New York Times seems to think we may be in one:



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/business/01econ.html?em

We already knew the economy was weak, and now you have both a negative growth number coupled with job losses,” said Dean Baker, a director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research. “There’s a lot of real bad times to come.”

 

[Chris]

Vehicle sales in the United States fell last month to their lowest level in 16 years, as consumers continued to shun large trucks because of high gas prices, and tight credit kept less creditworthy customers off lots.

Sam VarnHagen/Ford Motor, via Associated Press
A Ford plant in Oakville, Ontario. The automaker reported that sales in the United States fell 15 percent in July from a year ago.

Sales were down 13.2 percent, at a time when the companies had expected to begin seeing an improvement.

Instead, the five largest automakers each reported sales declines on Friday. Sales fell 26.1 percent at General Motors, the largest car company, while Chrysler, which used to be the third-largest, reported a 28.8 percent decline and came within a few thousand sales of falling to sixth place. The Ford Motor Company posted a 14.7 percent decline.

Together, the three Detroit automakers accounted for just 42.7 percent of the vehicle market last month, selling about 150,000 fewer vehicles than they had a year earlier.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/business/02auto.html?ref=automobiles

 

[CA95380]

According to Dictionary.com ...
recession: 4. Economics. a period of an economic contraction, sometimes limited in scope or duration.

depression: 7. Economics. a period during which business, employment, and stock-market values decline severely or remain at a very low level of activity.

There is an old joke among economists that states:
A recession is when your neighbor loses his job.
A depression is when you lose your job.

Recession? Depression? What's the difference between a recession and a depression?

 

[Paulie]

This is actually a lie. That is not how unemployment is determined. So the numbers aren't skewed by your big ugly conspiracy.



How the Government Measures Unemployment

Seriously people why make yourself look like an ass by not using Google. It only takes ten seconds. Just do the search and quit talking out your ass.

I haven't worked for a company, on the books, for about 5 years. I just started a business last year, and am just now starting to get back on the tax rolls. I haven't collected unemployment in OVER 5 years. Are you telling me that the government counts me in their statistics of unemployed people? Because over the last 5 years, there have been multiple occasions where I've been laye doff from work, but because I wasn't on the books, I was not filing for unemployment.

There are MANY situations where people are out of work, and for whatever reason, they are not "in the system". You can't tell me that those people are being counted.

I know a lot of small business owners in the trades field, and almost all of them pay their help in cash. I'd say in my area, the ratio of companies paying their help cash, to comnpanies who pay on the books, is about 50/50. That's a rough estimate based on my own personal experiences in the workforce. When cash paying companies lay their help off, those now unemployed workers are NOT being counted in government unemployment surveys.

Maybe I'm wrong about people's benefits running out, but that was the only part of what I posted that you addressed. You simply can not account for people who are not working on the books.

 

[Charles_Main]

According to Dictionary.com ...
recession: 4. Economics. a period of an economic contraction, sometimes limited in scope or duration.

depression: 7. Economics. a period during which business, employment, and stock-market values decline severely or remain at a very low level of activity.



Recession? Depression? What's the difference between a recession and a depression?

Neither of which is happening now.

The economy(GDP) is growing, slow but growing.

the difference between a recession and a depression is simple. A depression is far worse. A much deeper decline in growth.

 

[sealybobo]

Jobs data, GDP stoke debate over recession - Eye on the Economy - MSNBC.com

Spending got a sizable boost after the government handed out $100 billion worth of tax rebate checks. That money provided an artificial — and temporary — lift to consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of GDP.

I believe wo the economic stimulous checks, we'd be in a recession. not to mention we all know bush' fuzzy math is not to be trusted.

plus, you can't expect them to be honest about being in a recession or that could hurt consumer confidence.

 

[Chris]

Neither of which is happening now.

The economy(GDP) is growing, slow but growing.

the difference between a recession and a depression is simple. A depression is far worse. A much deeper decline in growth.

Car sales are down 13% to their lowest level in 16 years.

New home sales are down 22%. Foreclosures are at an all time high.

Gas prices reached an all time high this summer, and umemployment is rising.

463,000 people have lost their jobs since December.

We are in a recession.

What will happen is the Commerce Department will "revise" the figures after the election.

 

[editec]

It's like I said earlier, and as Tech Esq linked to they determine employment/unemployment BASED ON A SURVEY!!!

..the Government conducts a monthly sample survey called the Current Population Survey (CPS) to measure the extent of unemployment in the country. The CPS has been conducted in the United States every month since 1940 when it began as a Work Projects Administration project. It has been expanded and modified several times since then. As explained later, the CPS estimates, beginning in 1994, reflect the results of a major redesign of the survey.

There are about 60,000 households in the sample for this survey. The sample is selected so as to be representative of the entire population of the United States. In order to select the sample, first, the 3,141 counties and county-equivalent cities in the country are grouped into 1,973 geographic areas. The Bureau of the Census then designs and selects a sample consisting of 754 of these geographic areas to represent each State and the District of Columbia. The sample is a State-based design and reflects urban and rural areas, different types of industrial and farming areas, and the major geographic divisions of each State.

Each of the 754 areas in the sample is subdivided into enumeration districts of about 300 households. The enumeration districts, in turn, are divided into smaller clusters of about four dwelling units each, through the use of address lists, detailed maps, and other sources. Then, the clusters to be surveyed are chosen statistically, and the households in these clusters are interviewed.

Shocking, isn't it?

It really has nothing to do with anything but SELF-REPORTING.

Not people getting unemployment, not a survey of major companies, or small businesses...a SURVEY based on SELF REPORTING.

Is is accurate?

I truly have no idea.

 

[gonegolfin]

This is actually a lie. That is not how unemployment is determined. So the numbers aren't skewed by your big ugly conspiracy.

How the Government Measures Unemployment

Seriously people why make yourself look like an ass by not using Google. It only takes ten seconds. Just do the search and quit talking out your ass.

Well, you should have been a bit more exhaustive in your "search", instead of pretending that you actually know of which you speak. The original poster (Paulitics) was correct, even if he did not know the specific details.

The BLS measures employment and unemployment using the following methods.

#1
The Household Survey (which is rife with flaws) generates the unemployment rate from a statistically designed sampling of approximately 60,000 households. Although this number is politically sensitive as is evidenced when the Clinton administration reduced the sampling to 50,000 (eliminating substantial sampling in the inner cities), only to have the sampling revert back to the full 60,000 sampling just in time for the new Bush administration.

#2
The Payroll Survey is used to generate the number of non-farm jobs in the economy using a non-random monthly sampling of corporate payroll tax filings. The Payroll Survey is a much broader measure of employment. But it is not as statistically sound and does not measure unemployment (counts jobs).

Since we are specifically discussing the unemployment rate, we should focus on the Household Survey. This Survey results in six different unemployment rates being published by the BLS. The one always quoted in the media is U-3 and has been reported as 5.7% in July (seasonally adjusted). Unadjusted U-3 was 6.0%. The broadest measure of unemployment is U-6, which measures discouraged and marginally attached workers, as well as part-time workers. This rate is currently at 10.3% (seasonally adjusted). Unadjusted U-6 was 10.8%. But even the definition of discouraged and marginally attached workers has changed somewhat recently. Before the Clinton administration a discouraged worker was one who was ready, willing, and able to work but had thrown in the towel because there were no jobs to be had for that given worker. There was no time cap on this definition pre-Clinton. Clinton put into place a cap of one year, which immediately resulted in more than one half million workers falling out of the reporting statistics (biasing unemployment to the downside). As such, a true broad-based measure of unemployment is even higher than 10.3% (seasonally adjusted). Economist John Williams estimates it to be 14.3% using the pre-Clinton U-6. Incidentally, this pre-Clinton U-6 is the methodology used to measure unemployment in the Great Depression ERA (which averaged about 18% and hit a peak of 24.9% in 1933).

Brian

 

[Paulie]

Well, you should have been a bit more exhaustive in your "search", instead of pretending that you actually know of which you speak. The original poster (Paulitics) was correct, even if he did not know the specific details.

The BLS measures employment and unemployment using the following methods.

#1
The Household Survey (which is rife with flaws) generates the unemployment rate from a statistically designed sampling of approximately 60,000 households. Although this number is politically sensitive as is evidenced when the Clinton administration reduced the sampling to 50,000 (eliminating substantial sampling in the inner cities), only to have the sampling revert back to the full 60,000 sampling just in time for the new Bush administration.

#2
The Payroll Survey is used to generate the number of non-farm jobs in the economy using a non-random monthly sampling of corporate payroll tax filings. The Payroll Survey is a much broader measure of employment. But it is not as statistically sound and does not measure unemployment (counts jobs).

Since we are specifically discussing the unemployment rate, we should focus on the Household Survey. This Survey results in six different unemployment rates being published by the BLS. The one always quoted in the media is U-3 and has been reported as 5.7% in July (seasonally adjusted). Unadjusted U-3 was 6.0%. The broadest measure of unemployment is U-6, which measures discouraged and marginally attached workers, as well as part-time workers. This rate is currently at 10.3% (seasonally adjusted). Unadjusted U-6 was 10.8%. But even the definition of discouraged and marginally attached workers has changed somewhat recently. Before the Clinton administration a discouraged worker was one who was ready, willing, and able to work but had thrown in the towel because there were no jobs to be had for that given worker. There was no time cap on this definition pre-Clinton. Clinton put into place a cap of one year, which immediately resulted in more than one half million workers falling out of the reporting statistics (biasing unemployment to the downside). As such, a true broad-based measure of unemployment is even higher than 10.3% (seasonally adjusted). Economist John Williams estimates it to be 14.3% using the pre-Clinton U-6. Incidentally, this pre-Clinton U-6 is the methodology used to measure unemployment in the Great Depression ERA (which averaged about 18% and hit a peak of 24.9% in 1933).

Brian

Very true Brian, I admittedly did not know those details. I like to think the way I have explained it is for the laymen. Although I wasn't aware that reports changed back and forth between admins.

Regardless, you can break it down as specifically as you want to a lot of these posters here, and they will nonetheless stick their fingers in their ears and ignore it.

To most, what the news channels say about "5.7%" is good enough. And why shouldn't it be? I mean, I imagine it helps one to sleep much better believing 5.7%, instead of something more realistic of over 10%.

This is one aspect of why I down the MSM. You'll never hear anyone on TV news come on and explain why we shouldn't just accept the broad statistics that are generated, such as GDP, unemployment, and inflation, to name a few of the more important ones, without delving deeper to obtain more realistic numbers. Except of course for the few who get sparse air time, like Peter Schiff, only to be ridiculed and laughed at by the other bobbleheads in the split screen.

Someone doesn't want us to think outside the box. I'll leave it up to the imagination as to who that might be.

 

[sealybobo]

The technical Defintion of a recession is 2 consecutive quaters of Negative growth, or shriking.

So what are the numbers? well in the last 3 quaters they are:

Ending Dec 07 - Neg .02%
Ending Mar 08 - Pos .09%
Ending June 08 - Pos 1.9%

1.9% is actually less than expected but the pattern is over the last 3 months, an upward one.

While clearly things are not wonderful, I would have to say we are by no means in a recession. Despite what Both Obama and McCain are saying.

In fact I would say that in the face of the Housing Crisis, the Energy Crisis, and the Credit crunch. 1.9% growth is actually pretty amazing.

I would also point out that in the month of June the Dollar actually gained on many other currencies for the first time in a long while.

I am by no means trying to say that we are doing honky dory, only that things are clearly not as bad as some would have you think.

If we could only get deficit spending in check, and address the Energy crisis, we could start to see some real growth of the economy, and start our way out of this shaky economy.

All you people have to do is look at this post to realize who was right and who was wrong. Conservatives were wrong and we were right. This post was back in June. So for 5 months we had to argue with republicans whether or not we were "technically" in a recession, meanwhile the economy was falling apart.

And the only reason we aren't in a recession is all the socialist spending the GOP does on defense spending PLUS that last economic stimulous check. Had those checks not gone out, we would have had 2 straight quarters of decline.

So in the future, don't argue with us whether or not things are good or bad. We've been warning you people for 8 years now and you denied, denied, denied. Now you want to say it was Clinton/Carter's/Fannie/Freddy Mack's fault? Why didn't you say something sooner?

 

[Care4all]

yes, we are in a recession, we have just spent a trillion and a half the last year printing money to bail us out of the recession....if none of this was done, it would have shown its head already....but the gvt has been masking, (with cheap money, money laudering with other countries, printing money to borrow for our spending, keeping interest rates lower than what they should be, printing money for this bail out, stimulus packages, pork, giving up sovereignty with every coin they've printed and sold to China and Saudi Arabia, Japan etc etc etc...), what seems to be the inevitable ugly head of recession or even a prolonged recession....I can't believe all of the steps the gvt has done to try to nip this thing in the bud....!!!

 

[sealybobo]

The technical Defintion of a recession is 2 consecutive quaters of Negative growth, or shriking.

So what are the numbers? well in the last 3 quaters they are:

Ending Dec 07 - Neg .02%
Ending Mar 08 - Pos .09%
Ending June 08 - Pos 1.9%

1.9% is actually less than expected but the pattern is over the last 3 months, an upward one.

While clearly things are not wonderful, I would have to say we are by no means in a recession. Despite what Both Obama and McCain are saying.

In fact I would say that in the face of the Housing Crisis, the Energy Crisis, and the Credit crunch. 1.9% growth is actually pretty amazing.

I would also point out that in the month of June the Dollar actually gained on many other currencies for the first time in a long while.

I am by no means trying to say that we are doing honky dory, only that things are clearly not as bad as some would have you think.

If we could only get deficit spending in check, and address the Energy crisis, we could start to see some real growth of the economy, and start our way out of this shaky economy.

No mention of all the blue collar jobs going overseas? Today we see the trumpsters want to make trade fair and bring jobs back home. Did you realize when you wrote this that 700,000 jobs a month were going overseas or to Mexico?

 

[Muhammed]

The technical Defintion of a recession is 2 consecutive quaters of Negative growth, or shriking.

So what are the numbers? well in the last 3 quaters they are:

Ending Dec 07 - Neg .02%
Ending Mar 08 - Pos .09%
Ending June 08 - Pos 1.9%

1.9% is actually less than expected but the pattern is over the last 3 months, an upward one.

While clearly things are not wonderful, I would have to say we are by no means in a recession. Despite what Both Obama and McCain are saying.

In fact I would say that in the face of the Housing Crisis, the Energy Crisis, and the Credit crunch. 1.9% growth is actually pretty amazing.

I would also point out that in the month of June the Dollar actually gained on many other currencies for the first time in a long while.

I am by no means trying to say that we are doing honky dory, only that things are clearly not as bad as some would have you think.

If we could only get deficit spending in check, and address the Energy crisis, we could start to see some real growth of the economy, and start our way out of this shaky economy.

Actually we are in an economic depression.

 

[TheGreatGatsby]

The technical Defintion of a recession is 2 consecutive quaters of Negative growth, or shriking.

So what are the numbers? well in the last 3 quaters they are:

Ending Dec 07 - Neg .02%
Ending Mar 08 - Pos .09%
Ending June 08 - Pos 1.9%

1.9% is actually less than expected but the pattern is over the last 3 months, an upward one.

While clearly things are not wonderful, I would have to say we are by no means in a recession. Despite what Both Obama and McCain are saying.

In fact I would say that in the face of the Housing Crisis, the Energy Crisis, and the Credit crunch. 1.9% growth is actually pretty amazing.

I would also point out that in the month of June the Dollar actually gained on many other currencies for the first time in a long while.

I am by no means trying to say that we are doing honky dory, only that things are clearly not as bad as some would have you think.

If we could only get deficit spending in check, and address the Energy crisis, we could start to see some real growth of the economy, and start our way out of this shaky economy.

So, the Bush recession was another liberal lie. "We were heading for another Great Depression!"

 

[TheGreatGatsby]

?

Nice necro bump.

 

[AntonToo]

So, the Bush recession was another liberal lie. "We were heading for another Great Depression!"

Can't quite understand if this is some sort of sarcasm...but then I see you are Trump supporter and know to assume that your post is as stupid as it looks.

You are actually saying the there wasn't Great Recession in 2008. How fucking ignorant can you get?

 

[Rshermr]

The technical Defintion of a recession is 2 consecutive quaters of Negative growth, or shriking.

So what are the numbers? well in the last 3 quaters they are:

Ending Dec 07 - Neg .02%
Ending Mar 08 - Pos .09%
Ending June 08 - Pos 1.9%

1.9% is actually less than expected but the pattern is over the last 3 months, an upward one.

While clearly things are not wonderful, I would have to say we are by no means in a recession. Despite what Both Obama and McCain are saying.

In fact I would say that in the face of the Housing Crisis, the Energy Crisis, and the Credit crunch. 1.9% growth is actually pretty amazing.

I would also point out that in the month of June the Dollar actually gained on many other currencies for the first time in a long while.

I am by no means trying to say that we are doing honky dory, only that things are clearly not as bad as some would have you think.

If we could only get deficit spending in check, and address the Energy crisis, we could start to see some real growth of the economy, and start our way out of this shaky economy.

Actually we are in an economic depression.

Are you a economist? Please, me boy, show us all your link to an actual valid impartial source who will back up your statement.

 

[Rshermr]

The technical Defintion of a recession is 2 consecutive quaters of Negative growth, or shriking.

So what are the numbers? well in the last 3 quaters they are:

Ending Dec 07 - Neg .02%
Ending Mar 08 - Pos .09%
Ending June 08 - Pos 1.9%

1.9% is actually less than expected but the pattern is over the last 3 months, an upward one.

While clearly things are not wonderful, I would have to say we are by no means in a recession. Despite what Both Obama and McCain are saying.

In fact I would say that in the face of the Housing Crisis, the Energy Crisis, and the Credit crunch. 1.9% growth is actually pretty amazing.

I would also point out that in the month of June the Dollar actually gained on many other currencies for the first time in a long while.

I am by no means trying to say that we are doing honky dory, only that things are clearly not as bad as some would have you think.

If we could only get deficit spending in check, and address the Energy crisis, we could start to see some real growth of the economy, and start our way out of this shaky economy.

So, the Bush recession was another liberal lie. "We were heading for another Great Depression!"

So, Gatsby, the self proclaimed economic expert suggests we were not in a recession by early 2008. And that at that time we were not headed for a depression. Because, as a con troll with no understanding of economics, he would like to believe that.
And, Gatsby, remembering the Great Republican Depression of 2008, and having seen what happens when you do nothing (unemployment going from 3% to 25%) and end in the worst depression of all time, says this time doing nothing while we lost 700,000 jobs per month would have stopped us from being in another depression. Because he is such an expert in economics.
Gatsby is a con troll and an idiot. Which is repetitive. And unable to tell the difference between a non existent liberal lie and the truth.

 

[Rshermr]

So, the Bush recession was another liberal lie. "We were heading for another Great Depression!"

Can't quite understand if this is some sort of sarcasm...but then I see you are Trump supporter and know to assume that your post is as stupid as it looks.

You are actually saying the there wasn't Great Recession in 2008. How fucking ignorant can you get?

Technically, he is a con troll. And all con trolls are serial liars.