Economy & Business

Did the 2008 Recession Ever Really End? Experts Say “No”

There was some hope that the output revisions at month’s end would put to rest the recession debate. Instead, they only added more confusion because we still experienced two quarters of declining gross domestic product (GDP) as adjusted for inflation, which indicates recession…

“Real hourly compensation, which takes into account changes in consumer prices, decreased 4.4 percent in the second quarter of 2022, which followed a 4.4 percent decline in the first quarter,” the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) stated on Sept. 1.

That’s a substantial rate of decline in a once-prosperous nation. There is very little hope of a turnaround anytime soon, no matter what inanities are pushed by the White House spokesperson.

Do these huge hits to real income sound like recovery? Not even close. Is it a recession? At this point, I’m really wondering whether the word has lost its meaning completely. It is, of course, not a technical term at all but—like many words in the economic lexicon – merely a metaphor. It’s an attempt to create a story around vastly complicated realities that are impossible to capture fully in any data. Read more…

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