Originally posted by Quazga
So I saw a thread on here mentioning that the recession is liberal lies?

And so you feel the need to perpetuate the lies?

The 6.1% jobless rate is just that -the jobless rate. It does not define a recession. Economists have been predicting a recession since last fall. Coincidentally these predictions began about the same time serious campaigning began for the 2008 election.

Funny thing was at the end of the 2nd quarter the economy was growing at an annual rate of 3.3%.

Perhaps you should review the motto of ATS.

Originally posted by Jemison

I am glad to see that there are people responding that know the definiton of 'recession' and that others, are pointing out that while this may not fit the criteria, just like your example showed, there are exceptions to every rule and perhaps we are in economic times that might be that exception.

This isn't a matter of there being an exception to a "rule."

This is a simple definition. What we are seeing is people wanting to label the economy and the only word they know is "recession" so they use it incorrectly.

Let's put it another way...

Suppose there was a college course, and the professor gave and exam with a question that said:

"True or False. The GDP as of June 30, 2008 showed the economy growing at an annual rate of 3.3%. This means the economy is in a recession."

If a student answered this question "True" they would get the question wrong.

It's really not any more complicated than this.

[edit on 5-9-2008 by jamie83]

Originally posted by jamie83

Originally posted by Quazga
So I saw a thread on here mentioning that the recession is liberal lies?

And so you feel the need to perpetuate the lies?

The 6.1% jobless rate is just that -the jobless rate. It does not define a recession. Economists have been predicting a recession since last fall. Coincidentally these predictions began about the same time serious campaigning began for the 2008 election.

Funny thing was at the end of the 2nd quarter the economy was growing at an annual rate of 3.3%.

Perhaps you should review the motto of ATS.

Perhaps you should read the motto of ATS.

Why are you acting like a recession is not the inevitbile cyclic occurance that it is?

In other words.. why are you lying?

[edit on 5-9-2008 by Quazga]

I think the point is, what does it matter whether we are technically in a recession or not? Relying on a formula, rather than what is going on in the real world, to shape your view on how things are doing in the economy is a bit delusive.

And to that point, unless you know exactly what is accounted for and what isn't in these formulas, it's not really telling you the whole truth. For example, take employment.... on NPR this morning, they were saying that if the unemployment rate accounted for those who had simply given up looking for jobs, it would be around 7%, a full percentage point higher than the "official" unemployment rate.

Considering gas prices, food prices, retail sales, the housing situation, etc, it doesn't take an economist to tell me that we aren't living as comfortably as we were 3 years ago.

For what it's worth, I consider myself to be very fiscally conservative. No liberal bias here.

The value of the US Dollar is low but lets examine that.

low interest rates in US causes low demand for dollars on international exchange markets , lowers the value of the US currency. This is a good thing in the US for citizens getting loans.

Printing more money by the Fed keeps supply higher than demand.

Low us dollar equals less imports more exports because of exchange rates.
This is also a good thing for US citizens. More demand for goods made in US.
The Rising price of oil which we buy with a weak dollar destroys the export side of this benefit though.

So the Fed prints more, sets interest rates lower and causes less imports and more exports which further keeps the value of the dollar low.

The rising price of oil further increases the price of imports to the US.
All the shelves in Wallmart stocked with goods made in Chinese child labor sweatshops now cost more.....and makes made in USA goods more viable for the wallmarts to actually stock like their motto says. Your stuff costs more which gives the impression of a recession but it is good for the economy by reducing imports.

Then the unimformed come along and say ha look at the weak US dollar, US economy sucks when in reallity a low US dollar is the best thing for a US citizen. It gives low interest rates and more jobs through exports (in the absence of high crude prices).

In the end the low US dollar is good by itself but the high cost of crude imports at the same time is what is destroying the economy. Lower the price of oil and/or reduce oil imports and it will give a far bigger boost to the economy than artificially raising the value of the US currency by raising interest rates and printing less money.

The enemies of the US know this, this is why OPEC threatened to increase crude to $300 a barrel overnight if Iran was attacked. Which also proves they control the high price we are at now. This is why dependence on foreign oil is a major issue in this campaign, not so much the value of the dollar.

We could artificially raise the value of the US dollar by printing less and raising interest rates but OPEC can just raise crude again by pumping less. This would only hurt america by having high interest on everything and gas at the pump would still be the same (the higer dollar value would offset the raised crude prices to be where we are at today unchanged at the pump).

We are in a global economic war.