Here’s a great little post I tripped over tonight, telling the truth about the so-called recession. “The News Media Who Cried Wolf”
Apparently 8 out of 10 Americans have been conned into believing we’re in a recession, according to a recent Wall Street Journal poll, but the numbers simply disprove any such notion. We’re not in a recession, and we won’t be in one at least for the rest of this year.
Further research turns up several interesting facts…From wikipedia:
“…According to widespread definition, a recession occurs when real growth is negative for two or more successive quarters of a year.”
And, guess what? According to this wikipedia article, there hasn’t been a period of negative economic growth across the US since 2001 (Sorry I don’t have the Canadian numbers).
In fact, during the past 30 years, there have been just 4 periods of recession in the USA, each lasting an average of 11 months. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession
In contrast to the media’s ‘recession’ chants, during 2007 and throughout 2008 nearly every state economy has grown! The rate of growth has slowed down, but there’s nothing that remotely looks like a recession.
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis “in 2007 national economic growth slowed to 2.0% – a drop of 1 point from the years 2002-2006.”
“[only] Three states—Delaware, Michigan, and New Hampshire—saw their economies contract in 2007. …Construction– and finance–related industries were largely responsible for the weakness. In Delaware, the decline was primarily due to a large decline in finance and insurance, and secondarily due to a decline in construction. In Michigan and New Hampshire, declines in these industries and in real estate, rental, and leasing were largely responsible for the decreases in real GDP…
…Utah had the fastest economic growth in 2007 (5.3 percent), growing at more than twice the national rate. Durable goods manufacturing, retail trade, and real estate, rental, and leasing led the way in Utah, accounting for more than half the state’s growth. New York was the only eastern state among the ten fastest–growing states. Contrary to the nation and most states, finance and insurance was a strong contributor to growth in New York. Finance and insurance along with real estate, rental, and leasing accounted for 53 percent of New York’s growth.”
Note: Historically, there have been 32 cycles of economic contraction & expansion over the past 154 years. On average, 17 months of contraction followed by 38 months of expansion.
And, finally…
Check out the chart at the bottom of this page… which shows the US Gross Domestic Growth month by month from 2006, and forecasts continual growth through the end of 2008.
Tags: Economy, Recession, So-called Recession
