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'Double Dip'? Or Did the 'Great Recession' Really Never End?    

Monday's weak consumer spending data is the latest in a string of reports that has many Americans worried about a "double-dip" recession.

Then again, considering the unemployment rate has remained elevated, many Americans would be forgiven for thinking the recession that began in December 2007 still hasn't ended. Notably, that's the view of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the nation's official arbiter of economic expansion and contraction.

Among the signs suggesting the NBER is right to hold off in declaring the recession over:

Housing Rolling Over: Last week's housing numbers were horrific, especially the steep drop in new home sales. Still, Coldwell Banker CEO Jim Gillespie tried to put some lipstick on the proverbial pig on Tech Ticker last week.

Jobs Still Hard to Come By: Despite signs of recent progress, "there's no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession," a notably candid Vice President Joe Biden said Monday. Friday's jobs report is expected to show overall payrolls declined by 115,000 in June... 

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/double-dip-or-did-the-great-recession-really-never-end-yftt_510021.html  (http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/double-dip-or-did-the-great-recession-really-never-end-yftt_510021.html)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100628/ap_on_bi_ge/central_banks;_ylt=AuButciR0F.2LNtL_keBKI2w73QA;_ylu=X3oDMTJrZGY1dm1iBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNjI4L2NlbnRyYWxfYmFua3MEcG9zAzE2BHNlYwN5bl9wYWdpbmF0ZV9zdW1tYXJ5X2xpc3QEc2xrA2Jpc3dvcmxkZWNvbg-- (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100628/ap_on_bi_ge/central_banks;_ylt=AuButciR0F.2LNtL_keBKI2w73QA;_ylu=X3oDMTJrZGY1dm1iBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNjI4L2NlbnRyYWxfYmFua3MEcG9zAzE2BHNlYwN5bl9wYWdpbmF0ZV9zdW1tYXJ5X2xpc3QEc2xrA2Jpc3dvcmxkZWNvbg--)

Don't go screaming the sky is falling as of yet, there are many factors into the equation.
Economic recovery might not be as smooth as we think. Any economist will tell you that public spending doesn't solve economic crises, but is supposed to act as way to treat the symptoms of such, ultimately it boils down to the laws of supply and demand in the market, and buyer and seller trying to find a reasonable bargain.

So, last month data in consumer spending looked like one of worst since. Give time for things to adjust. For all we know because of this businesses are going to sell goods at lower prices now. Both article say that a double dip may happen if such and such isn't put into account. It's all theoretical and based on happenings in the past, which have their similarities but of course are unique in their own ways.

My article made it sound the next possible crises isn't months away but maybe in a few years:
"The report recommended winding down stimulus packages, raising interest rates in the long term and forcing through reforms of the financial system to prevent sudden shocks from causing market-wide collapse as they did two years ago."

Winding down the stimulus packages -- Why not? Financial institutions are better off now than they were.

Raising interest rates in the long term -- Yeah that's the general idea: that's what actually happens as a result of interest rates being low, the supply of borrowable money shrinks, and to adjust money-supply interest rates are risen as money is more scarce, and therefore valuable (well theoretically, without external actors).

Forcing through reforms of the financial institutions -- Well you can't keep the same incentive around for financial institutions to make loans to people who are at risk of defaulting. It's harder to get loans these days anyways.

However in the yahoo report didn't say what Bank for International Settlements said  in how stimulus should be cut and for who, how rates should be risen, and what kind of reforms are necessary.

Let's look at your article

"Monday's weak consumer spending data is the latest in a string of reports that has many Americans worried about a "double-dip" recession."
I read somewhere last week, that consumer spending has gone down as a result of the ending of the tax incentives for buying homes. I don't really know how that correlation was concluded. But:
"Housing Rolling Over: Last week's housing numbers were horrific, especially the steep drop in new home sales."
Tax incentives cut maybe?

"Jobs Still Hard to Come By: Despite signs of recent progress, "there's no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession,"'
I've read elsewhere that we're creating jobs at the same rate we are losing them at this point, but were still backed-up from the start of the great recession. When the dotcom bubble burst, and economic recovery came as a result of the Fed lowering interest rates it took two years for those left unemployed by the crisis to get employed. Unemployment nowadays is a lagging indicator in our post-industrial society. It isn't a reliable source to determine economic recovery. It used to be like before 1970, because most Americans were employed in factories, and so when consumer spending increased waves of workers kept of furlough would come pouring into their workplaces, and consumer spending would increase even more.

"Hair-Shirts' in Fashion, Worldwide: As discussed here, this weekend's G20 meeting shows that policymakers believe the time for fiscal austerity is at hand. From an economic point of view, the G20 confirms that the appeal of government spending (i.e. Keynesian economics) to combat the downturn is on the wane, replaced by a view that it's better to take the pain now and cut spending (i.e. Austrian economics)."
Mix-and-match maybe? Most policymakers don't really dogmatically hang onto just one set of theoretical guideline, unless of course they are extremists. Maybe Keynesian economics isn't relevant right now as the "too-big-to-fail" have all been bailed out?  The article doesn't say why this shift in thinking has occurred and to what extent.

As for the bond market I don't really know much about it.


"Of course, it was unrealistic to expect the economy to indefinitely continue its V-shaped rise from the depths of last year. Most recoveries are uneven so it's premature to say what's happening lately is proof positive the economy is rolling over, as Henry and I discuss in the accompanying video."

Yup,  economic growth is pretty uneven nowadays.

http://caivn.org/article/2010/06/29/paul-krugman-fears-america-has-entered-its-third-depression (http://caivn.org/article/2010/06/29/paul-krugman-fears-america-has-entered-its-third-depression)
Paul Krugman, Ron Paul, and Peter Schiff believe that we're on the early stages of a third economic depression. Krugman advocates more Keynesian policies while Paul and Schiff opt for Austrian School of Economics type policies.
Ever noticed these guys aren't the most moderate when it comes to advice, and they always talk of gloom and doom.
I suppose if they didn't they wouldn't get a cult following and nobody would listen to them, much like heavily opinionated college professors.

I don't write 'em, I just post 'em.   :lookingup:

Sorry didn't mean to denigrate you, or hurt anyones feelings.
I should have differentiated between you and other potential replies.

I read that article and the replies corresponding to it which were riddled with panic, and so I was expecting a storm of panic.

I'm never going to read replies on news articles again!

 the move from DOW 7000 to 10,000 was pretty much pure inflation.  the whole keynesian thing of stimulating demand is a joke and scam. They aren't letting the correction occur. They need to cut spending and stop inflating not do more of it.  unemployment is at 10%! after all that stimulus bs. 

Eventually tit is gong to dawn on them:  massive spending cuts and let institutions that screw up FAIL.  we are prolonging our own agony with this foolishness

I really hope they aren't trying to stimulate demand through fiscal policies otherwise that would have a crowding out effect, as government demand would cause most of the markets resources to shift their way, leaving much less resources for consumers and then the price of goods would rise due to scarcity. I really hope not because then they don't understand economics 101!

As long as wealth is punished by confiscatory taxation, you will continue to have less of it.  Look at the states that are doing well during the recession: none of them have a state income tax, and all of them are business-friendly.  You want jobs to come back?  Quit demonizing industry!

What states are these, and whats their taxation on wealth like?

I know NV does not have a state income tax and the recession hit there very hard. 

Nevada has no economy other than tourism, and that always suffers in a recession.  Texas has weathered this one pretty well overall - we have no state income tax and a business-friendly state government.   The study I heard cited the five states with the highest state income tax, and five states with no state income tax.  The statistics were pretty impressive, as I recall.  I'll see if I can find the study.

Nevada never suffered a recession until this one.  That's why it stuck in my mind last time I visited.  My point with the NV example really isn't that cutting taxes is a bad idea in a recession, but that economies are complex things, particularly in the global marketplace, and there's no simple cure-all like cutting taxes that's going to work in every case.

So what exactly is a 'double-dip' recession?     

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Concerns are rising that the economy is at risk of slipping into a "double-dip" recession.

High unemployment, Europe's debt crisis, a slowdown in China, a teetering housing market and sinking stock prices are all weighing on a fragile U.S. recovery.

So what exactly is a double-dip recession?

Robert Hall has an idea of what one looks like but no precise definition. He's chairman of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a group of academic economists that officially declares the starts and ends of recessions.

In Hall's view, a double dip is akin to a continuous recession that's punctuated by a period of growth, then followed by a further decline in the economy.

The NBER doesn't define a double dip any more specifically than that, says Hall, an economics professor at Stanford University.

In econo-speak, Hall explains: "The idea -- hypothetical because it has yet to happen -- is that activity might rise for a period, but not far enough to complete a cycle, then fall again, and finally rise above its original level, only then completing the cycle."

Hall says the closest the United States has come to a double dip was in 1980 and 1981. But the NBER concluded that those were two distinct, though closely spaced, recessions -- "not a double dip," he says.

Not so, says Sung Won Sohn, professor at California State University, Channel Islands. Sohn says the back-to-back recessions of the early '80s fit his definition of a double dip: A recession followed by a short period of growth followed by a recession... 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/So-what-exactly-is-a-apf-718644427.html?x=0 (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/So-what-exactly-is-a-apf-718644427.html?x=0) 

Which makes just about every word after that completely and totally irrelevant here in the real world.

Sorry, but having been a part of academia for many years, I find academics tiresome and pretty much wrong about almost everything out of their mouths.

Debate about theoretical definitions of double dip, or if we are even really in a recession, are academic and do nothing for people trying to put food on their tables.

The big elephant in the room is debt.  I think convincing people to stop wanting 'stuff' (phones, cars, houses, whatever) that they cannot afford and to live within their means is a much more important endeavor than academic discussions.

And yes, that should apply to the nation's government as well.  The real world is proving once again that Keynes was an idiot.

*applause*


AH: but unless and until you achieve this with the public, any attempt by gov't to apply the same principle will be met with much sustained kicking and screaming and protests - by both the public AND the opposition parties - on the scale of 'lose the next election'.   Canadian politics is rife with this.    :lookingup:

:question:  "AH"?  Are you referring to me?

That was not my intention: I merely meant to say "Ah" as I would if speaking aloud rather than typing.  I'll watch that in future.  Sorry for causing confusion.

See, this is what I've been saying for three years now. Asking people to spend money to stimulate the economy is all well and good except when people don't have any money to spend on luxuries (exactly the sort of thing they want you to buy) or they don't have a job with which to earn money. No one likes going into debt, after all.

You're good, I'm not "AH" but, often "AHD"... You've nothing to watch, I talk-type allah time.  :bouncegiggle:  :smile: :wink:

They have had members from all over the political spectrum like Milton Freedman and Paul Krugman. But as a student, I know it is important to know an organizations political bias, but this group, academically they may be more balanced in their definitions and research. Then again I don't how much influence the chair person has over the organization.
 
Economics is more political than most people would think, everyone has their own beliefs as to how resources should be distributed, so it's important to know the source of the research.

And then as stated earlier theres the whole academic vs. other economists.

Let me clarify, you are NOT quoting "Allhallowsday" but the article I've linked.  :bluesad:

Yep I'm quoting the article...

Here, I'm quoting you, but note how. 

Like this, right?

In my opinion, I think what could help at this time to help create more jobs is if the government gave firms a tax-break for hiring up to a certain amount of positions that would out-set any loss these firms would receive. This of course being a temporary measure. Maybe this had already been done, but I don't know to what extent.

Also I think the tax-break on buying homes should be renewed until national income is up.

End the extra taxes on cigarettes, they're too regressive.

Now isn't a time to raise taxes as we're recovering, though in an uneven manner. There's still too many people unemployed, and if the government were to hire people right now, and say we get back to pre-recession levels then we might end up with too much waste and inefficiencies because it's harder for government to keep costs low. Also it's possible that raising more taxes will lead to more people being out of work. Firms need the money that could be wasted on too much government spending to invest in domestic production.

 :lookingup:

From article:
"Robert Hall has an idea of what one looks like but no precise definition. He's chairman of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a group of academic economists that officially declares the starts and ends of recessions."

or

Okay, got it.