Fates worse than debt
Give us the seven hundred billion, sez Bernanke and Paulson, or we risk a recession.
What’s so damned deadly about a farking recession? I’ve lived through nine, maybe ten of them. In fact, since 1946, the US economy has been in recession about 14% of the time.
Based on figures by the National Bureau of Economic Research, I’ve lived through nine myself; I was born during one. (Bill’s not so much older than I am.)
NBER’s definition differs slightly from the one in popular circulation:
The NBER does not define a recession in terms of two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP. Rather, a recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.
Either way, we’re not in one at the moment, and it seems unseemly for the government to threaten us with one.
ms7168 »
25 September 2008 · 11:25 am
Depends on who you talk to. I have been hearing for over a year now that we are headed for a full blown depression worse than 1929 ever thought about.
Others say recession but the kind that will go on and on and seemingly never end and possibly get worse and worse as it goes.
At any rate the news is -not- good!
Mister Snitch! »
26 September 2008 · 1:57 am
Asking the government to fix the economy is like asking… uh, I can’t think of anything bad enough. We’re screwed.
McGehee »
26 September 2008 · 2:33 pm
…like asking a 2-day-old to change its own diaper.