Since I graduated from college with a degree in economics, two-quarters of negative growth was defined as a … RECESSION. Suddenly, a recession is not a recession. It is, according to one Democrat economist, “a complex recovery.”
President Biden has flatly stated that America is not in a recession. Apparently, he did not get a degree in economics. He did get a BS degree, but I mistakenly assumed it meant Bachelor of Science. He has spent a lifetime establishing the real meaning of those letters, however.
No matter how the White House economists and the media sycophants explain the difference between the standard two-quarter negative growth recession and the new “complex recovery” recession, they are describing exactly the same thing. No feel-good euphemism can change the fact that America is officially in a recession. No matter how much lipstick, Biden tries to put on that economic pig, the recession will hit the American workers, consumers, and businesses like a … recession.
One factor that Biden & Co. used to claim it is not a recession is that the unemployment rate has not soared. That, of course, as nothing to do with the definition of a recession. We must remember that this unprecedented job growth that Biden brags about was already baked into the cake. Economists on all sides told us that because we shut down a healthy economy by mandate – creating high unemployment by edict — that once the Covid Pandemic had subsided, the unemployment rate would drop vey fast.
All those jobs Biden has claimed to have created were already built into any recovery. If anything, Biden’s policies have slowed the potential job growth. Almost two years after the vaccinations put the brunt of the Pandemic in the rearview mirror, we have not yet reached the level of employment that we enjoyed before the economy was shut down.
In addition, the reason that the unemployment rate is remaining low is because a high percentage of Americans are not looking for work – as evidenced by the millions of job opportunities going unfilled. Those who are no longer looking for a job are not counted as unemployed. If they were, the unemployment rate would be much higher. That unprecedented anomaly has nothing to do with the determination of a recession.
In attempting to cool the inflation, the Federal Reserve bank is raising interest rates by leaps and bounds not seen for more than 40 years – when the Carter inflation had soared into the mid-teens. Economists – again on both sides – have said that raising rates COULD bring on a recession. Some even said it would –and did.
Those who drive the stock market reacted to the first Fed interest rate increase as if it would bring on a recession. The market dropped significantly. That happened even as the next interest rate increase of predicted. Obviously, the millions of investors who drive the market are thinking inflation – not “complex recovery.”
Sorry, Mr. President. We are in a recession. It may be a mild recession. Maybe short-lived. That is still an open question. But the American public can know (and feel) a recession when they see one. No reliance on your political BS-degree language can fool them.
So, there ‘tis