Dec 01 2008
Oh, Really? Another “No Duh” moment in American economics.
I saw this post over at Vulcan’s Hammer - Ouch! It is now official–Recession . In it he links to a report from the LA Times that states the National Bureau of Economic Research announced that the U.S. has been in a recession since December of 2007.
Technically, we are supposed to be in a recession when there is a decline of GDP in two consecutive quarters. According to the report, the NBER uses additional data including employment data. The good part is that this is a non-governmental, private organization doing this study and putting out the report - because - had this been a government funded (taxpayer funded) report - I would have to question why we are spending the money to have somebody report something that we already know!
Times have been tough for a very large number of people for a very long time. Layoffs and the unemployment rate have been gradually increasing over the last year. Homes have been foreclosed on since last July and the number of foreclosures continue to rise. Overall consumer spending has been decreasing gradually over the past year - partly due to the energy costs - partly due to the fact that unemployment has gone up.
This might be news to those who haven’t been paying attention - but - for those of us who have been watching and consider themselves to be fiscal conservatives and watching the way the politicians have been screwing over businesses the past year and spending out of control, and now, they’re just printing money like crazy - well - this is just one of those “No Duh” or more appropriately - No Shit Sherlock! And..you wasted how much of that non-profit money putting this study together?!?!?
