President Joe Biden is opening a new line of attack against former President Donald Trump this week, flipping the script on the classic Reagan-era “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” question to remind voters of life during his predecessor’s tenure.
No, I’m legitimately asking if you’re joking or not.
Economists have long defined a recession as “a period in which real GDP declines for at least two consecutive quarters,” to quote the popular economics textbook by Nobel laureates Paul Samuelson and William Nordhaus. This definition isn’t perfect, but it describes almost every downturn since World War II. With expectations of low or even negative growth for the first two quarters of 2022, President Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers has been trying to blunt the news by disavowing this textbook definition. It is “neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle,” reads a post on the White House website. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen endorsed the claim on NBC over the weekend. In place of the standard economic definition of a recession, administration officials point to the business-cycle dating committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research as the “official recession scorekeeper.” It’s a highly convenient move for them. While the nonpartisan NBER employs a robust set of indicators to pinpoint recessions, it does so retrospectively.
You’re citing an opinion piece, that vaguely references what yellen says. I just gave you a paper from the IMF, from over a decade before the definition “changed,” that says the definition you use is not the definition.
You also have to realize that if they had claimed it was a recession, it would have bucked the trends of almost every (if not actually every) recession before it as well. Like employment was going up during the supposed recession. So the argue this person cuts both ways.
Yeah I guess you’re right, the economy is doing better than ever. I have to choose between food and gas but thank fuck the dems are telling us we’re not in a recession.
No, I’m legitimately asking if you’re joking or not.
You’re citing an opinion piece, that vaguely references what yellen says. I just gave you a paper from the IMF, from over a decade before the definition “changed,” that says the definition you use is not the definition.
You also have to realize that if they had claimed it was a recession, it would have bucked the trends of almost every (if not actually every) recession before it as well. Like employment was going up during the supposed recession. So the argue this person cuts both ways.
Yeah I guess you’re right, the economy is doing better than ever. I have to choose between food and gas but thank fuck the dems are telling us we’re not in a recession.
Yes, clearly by pointing out that the definition didn’t change, im saying the economy is better than ever. You’re truly a genius. Lol
Anything to avoid learning, as I predicted. Not that it was hard to predict.
🙄