Is it a Recession?
It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours. - Harry S. truman
Well it may soon be official. Today the Commerce Department confirmed Gross Domestic Product grew at only 0.6% for the last quarter of 2007. In April, the report for the first quarter of 2008 will be out and it is expected to show negative growth. For those of you keeping score, if we get two quarters of negative growth, then it is officially a recession. Hold on, will know by June or July if we are in an official recession.
You see it does not matter that milk, bread, eggs, and cereal prices are killing you. It does not matter that gas prices are eliminating disposable income or that your job is in jeopardy. We are not officially in a recession, thank you.
That is until we get official word from the Commerce Department in June or July.
In an excellent article in January, Barbara Ehrenreich, writing for the Huffington Post, pointed out that over 50% of Americans already believe we are in a recession. For the public, the economists' definition is meaningless – hard times are hard times, with or without an economist's blessing. Technically, I suppose the proper comment is, "all leading indicators point to a recession."
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By AJC @ 7million7years, March 27, 2008 @ 6:37 pm
I’m pretty sure it’s a recession … I’m absolutely sure that it’s time to snap up some bargains (stocks, real-estate) and leverage them with the cheap money now on offer.
$20 million in 10 years anyone?
By Pay Day, January 10, 2009 @ 12:38 am
American people are currently being hit by recession. Even workers from other places are affected by it that is why President-elect Barack Obama is doing the best way he can to help the consumers and workers out of this trouble. His plan of cutting taxes to consumers would benefit not only the workers and consumers but also the businesses. He’s trying to get out a tax cut and a tax credit called the Make Work Pay credit. The future is impossible to tell – but it seems that the measures enacted by the current administration aren’t helping and the need for a payday loan is increasing. The mortgage collapse and subsequent credit crunch have slowed the economy to an almost stand still. However, economic measures usually take some time to start working, but it doesn’t take the sting out, in the meantime.