You can predict a recession by observing that spending goes down before the recession actually happens. Observe, for instance, that this happens for many things

You can predict a recession by observing that spending goes down before the recession actually happens. Observe, for instance, that this happens for many things, including stock prices : they drop before the recession. People buying stuff, goes down before recession starts. Etc. Pregnancies are simply something that get planned out. You make sure you have room, things have to be going well, you only do it if you feel comfortable about your employment. And so on and so forth. They're an indicator, sure, but keep in mind that there's many indicators. From sandwiches eaten to car sales, everything drops before the recession happens (well, except "sin stocks"). People will reply that that's a recession being predicted by a lot of people. That's not really true. It's many actors reacting to each other. In many cases (almost every last example, although there are exceptions), recessions are caused by the government raising interest rates, after having kept them down. This forces companies and consumers alike to accept the truth about decisions they've made in the past few years (since rolling forward debt becomes harder, and thus at the margin impossible). By observing what's currently happening with sales figures in a lot of sectors I would say we're at the beginning of the transition into the recession, 6-12 months before the actual recession in GDP figures. The stock market top is ~now (as in just passed, or perhaps coming up any second now), and everybody in the financial industry pretty much knows what's coming (but a lot of players cannot currently act upon that for various reasons). Given just how low interest rates were (ie. < 0), and for how long (~10 years), the next recession ought to be a doozy. Lots of debt needs to be worked out of the system.