4 ms·

We've been redefining recession recently, it may not matter much what the textbook definition is.

by _heimdall 8mo ago

ekjhgkejhgk 8mo ago
What specifically has changed?
- andyferris 8mo ago
  I took that as maybe referring to Trump?
- gruez 8mo ago
  Probably referring to the "2 quarters of negative GDP" rule that was seemingly revoked under Biden.
  - m-hodges 8mo ago
    It wasn’t “revoked under Biden.” That implies the Biden administration (or any administration) gets to define this. They don’t. Recessions in the United States are generally demarcated by NBER.¹ ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bureau_of_Economic_Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bureau_of_Economic_Re...
    - gruez 8mo ago
      >It wasn’t “revoked under Biden.” That implies the Biden administration (or any administration) gets to define this. No, not any more than "the pandemic started under the Trump administration" implies that they caused the pandemic.
      - m-hodges 8mo ago
        I just plainly disagree that a casual reader wouldn’t see the phrase “revoked under Biden” and believe it meant that Biden did the revoking.
      - lovich 8mo ago
        [flagged]
        gruez 8mo ago
        >It does imply that because the Trump admin killed the group involved with preventing pandemics[1] No it doesn't, not without massively reading in between the lines. This is getting to absurd levels of nitpicking over wording, like "autistic people" vs "people with autism". >I assume you are being disingenuous by using that claim while also trying to smear the Biden admin. Two can play at this game. I assume you're being disingenuous by trying to put words in my mouth over tiny disagreements in wording.
  - no-name-here 7mo ago
    That was never such a "rule"; that was 1 of 4 considerations from a 1974 NY Times opinion piece, and those 4 considerations were in turn a simplification of the overall recession considerations, as the combined 4 items were intended to be more understandable by the general public than the actual items. Where had you heard that there was such a "rule"? (And as others pointed out, it's a private organization, not the government, that has set and evaluates recession criteria.)
- conductr 8mo ago
  Realizing that GDP growth can be achieved while average joe on Main Street is struggling. The billionaires doing well masks everyone else struggling to afford groceries. In general, people are kind of calling BS on what the definition should be because we are all collectively feeling that things are doing poorly but no one is quite willing to recognize it due to the definitional stuff.
  - JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
    > Realizing that GDP growth can be achieved while average joe on Main Street is struggling This is most GDP growth across human history until the Industrial Revolution with the exception of maybe a half dozen civilisations.
    - alephnerd 8mo ago
      Even during the Industrial Revolution as well. And even the idealized vision of the 1950s-60s that is common on the Internet was itself a fantasy for a plurality of Americans until the Great Deal began sinking in. There was a period of slightly more income equality in the 1930s-1960s as Piketty [0] and Zucman [1] show, but this was also at the expense of racial and gender equality. The 1970s was probably the most equal period economically speaking as Zucman showed [1]. We should not strive to return to the 1950s - we should strive to be better than anytime previously. [0] - http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capital21c/en/Piketty2014FiguresTables.pdf http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capital21c/en/Piketty2014Fig... [1] - https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/SaezZucman14slides.pdf https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/SaezZucman14slides.pdf
    - lovich 8mo ago
      What did your response have to do with your quote? We can have the most growth ever as a civilization and still have the common person lose out. The Industrial Revolution also famously had a lot of people pushed into impoverished situations while robber barons or the highland clearing lords won out, despite the GDP of those respective countries increasing.
      - 7mo ago
- _heimdall 7mo ago
  Historically, both politicians and yhe media considered two consecutive quarters of declining GDP. The Biden administration changed that, basically arguing that the definition is too narrow and they preferred to use a more broad set of indicators that just so happened to avoid calling a recession when they wanted to claim a strong economy.
  - IAmBroom 7mo ago
    The Biden administration argued for a change. They did not convince others. It's like saying "Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico" - no one but loyalists bought in. Economists continue to use the same definition as before, despite your attempt to blame Biden.
tonyedgecombe 7mo ago
It does matter. It's best not to let politicians redefine the facts in their favour.

We've been redefining recession recently, it may not matter much what the textbook definition is.

ekjhgkejhgk 8mo ago

What specifically has changed?

andyferris 8mo ago
I took that as maybe referring to Trump?
gruez 8mo ago
Probably referring to the "2 quarters of negative GDP" rule that was seemingly revoked under Biden.
- m-hodges 8mo ago
  It wasn’t “revoked under Biden.” That implies the Biden administration (or any administration) gets to define this. They don’t. Recessions in the United States are generally demarcated by NBER.¹ ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bureau_of_Economic_Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bureau_of_Economic_Re...
  - gruez 8mo ago
    >It wasn’t “revoked under Biden.” That implies the Biden administration (or any administration) gets to define this. No, not any more than "the pandemic started under the Trump administration" implies that they caused the pandemic.
    - m-hodges 8mo ago
      I just plainly disagree that a casual reader wouldn’t see the phrase “revoked under Biden” and believe it meant that Biden did the revoking.
    - lovich 8mo ago
      [flagged]
      - gruez 8mo ago
        >It does imply that because the Trump admin killed the group involved with preventing pandemics[1] No it doesn't, not without massively reading in between the lines. This is getting to absurd levels of nitpicking over wording, like "autistic people" vs "people with autism". >I assume you are being disingenuous by using that claim while also trying to smear the Biden admin. Two can play at this game. I assume you're being disingenuous by trying to put words in my mouth over tiny disagreements in wording.
- no-name-here 7mo ago
  That was never such a "rule"; that was 1 of 4 considerations from a 1974 NY Times opinion piece, and those 4 considerations were in turn a simplification of the overall recession considerations, as the combined 4 items were intended to be more understandable by the general public than the actual items. Where had you heard that there was such a "rule"? (And as others pointed out, it's a private organization, not the government, that has set and evaluates recession criteria.)
conductr 8mo ago
Realizing that GDP growth can be achieved while average joe on Main Street is struggling. The billionaires doing well masks everyone else struggling to afford groceries. In general, people are kind of calling BS on what the definition should be because we are all collectively feeling that things are doing poorly but no one is quite willing to recognize it due to the definitional stuff.
- JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
  > Realizing that GDP growth can be achieved while average joe on Main Street is struggling This is most GDP growth across human history until the Industrial Revolution with the exception of maybe a half dozen civilisations.
  - alephnerd 8mo ago
    Even during the Industrial Revolution as well. And even the idealized vision of the 1950s-60s that is common on the Internet was itself a fantasy for a plurality of Americans until the Great Deal began sinking in. There was a period of slightly more income equality in the 1930s-1960s as Piketty [0] and Zucman [1] show, but this was also at the expense of racial and gender equality. The 1970s was probably the most equal period economically speaking as Zucman showed [1]. We should not strive to return to the 1950s - we should strive to be better than anytime previously. [0] - http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capital21c/en/Piketty2014FiguresTables.pdf http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capital21c/en/Piketty2014Fig... [1] - https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/SaezZucman14slides.pdf https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/SaezZucman14slides.pdf
  - lovich 8mo ago
    What did your response have to do with your quote? We can have the most growth ever as a civilization and still have the common person lose out. The Industrial Revolution also famously had a lot of people pushed into impoverished situations while robber barons or the highland clearing lords won out, despite the GDP of those respective countries increasing.
    - 7mo ago
_heimdall 7mo ago
Historically, both politicians and yhe media considered two consecutive quarters of declining GDP. The Biden administration changed that, basically arguing that the definition is too narrow and they preferred to use a more broad set of indicators that just so happened to avoid calling a recession when they wanted to claim a strong economy.
- IAmBroom 7mo ago
  The Biden administration argued for a change. They did not convince others. It's like saying "Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico" - no one but loyalists bought in. Economists continue to use the same definition as before, despite your attempt to blame Biden.

tonyedgecombe 7mo ago

It does matter. It's best not to let politicians redefine the facts in their favour.