If This Isn’t a Recession, Then What the Hell is It?

[McCamy Taylor]

Good news, everyone! The recession is over! It ended last year!

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/the-recession-has-officially-ended/

What? You didn’t notice? You say you were too busy pounding the pavement looking for work, after your employer laid you off and moved your job overseas? And every time you hear about a job opening in your field, there are twenty or thirty other people who show up to apply? You gained a ton of weight sitting on the couch every night, eating fried, greasy food (all you could afford) and now your back is bothering you, so you can’t do manual labor. You say the best you can hope for is Social Security disability, with a big fat $900 a month check for the rest of your life? But your disability claim was denied, and so you have to appeal. And in the meantime, all your credit cards are maxed out---

What? You didn’t get the good news? You say the small business, which you inherited from your father who got it from his father closed down last year? And you were forced to let 10 employees go? You needed a loan, so that you could replace failing equipment, but the Banksters laughed at you. The bailout money was already earmarked---for Wall Street executive bonuses. There was no cash left over for small businesses like yours. Now you work for Walmart, for a quarter of your old income, and six of your former employees still haven’t found jobs. Yeah, I can see how the jobless recovery might have escaped your attention.

What? You say you lost your home? Your husband had a heart attack, and you had to take out a second mortgage to pay the deductible on his medical bills and make up for the lost income. Right before he was scheduled to go back to work, his company “downsized” all their older employees and hired temps to do their jobs. You would have sold your home, but its value suddenly plummeted. The bank foreclosed and it was sold on auction to a real estate investor for 10% of what you paid for it. Now, you live with your grown children, and they like to watch game shows and wrestling, so you don't get a chance to watch the news anymore. That must be why you missed the good news last year.

What? You were retired, living on Social Security and savings? And then, your investments turned to liquid shit, and now you only have your Social Security check, which barely pays your utilities and property tax? Good thing you were able to get a job running the cash register at the local Burger King. Ordinarily, they don’t hire people as old as you, but the manager (someone less than half your age) felt sorry for you. Now, you spend your twilight years on your feet forty hours a week, which is not good for your congestive heart failure, but it’s better than starving to death---

Q: If this isn’t a recession, then what the hell is it?

A1: A depression?

Considered a rare and extreme form of recession, a depression is characterized by its length, and by abnormally large increases in unemployment, falls in the availability of credit—quite often due to some kind of banking/financial crisis, shrinking output and investment, numerous bankruptcies—including sovereign debt defaults, significantly reduced amounts of trade and commerce—especially international, as well as highly volatile relative currency value fluctuations—most often due to devaluations. Price deflation, financial crises and bank failures are also common elements of a depression.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_(economics)

A2: "The new normal"?

So whether we're looking at another recession or slow growth that's insufficient to create jobs, capital will increasingly demand further concessions from workers, whether in the form of wage reductions or cuts in social programs. This will reshape politics for a generation.

http://socialistworker.org/2010/08/12/headed-for-a-double-dip.

A3: The end of the American dream and the beginning of the American nightmare?

[dkf]

1. It's the new normal

[toppertwot]

37. WHAT THE HELL IS IT?

I read a post that said this was the Bush recovery.

[DCBob]

2. maybe stagnation..

but we are not in a depression... nowhere near.

[butterfly77]

3. It was a..

depression when he walked into office..

[Ozymanithrax]

4. Very slow growth that eschews bubble economies. .

Bubble economies lead to fast growth and predicable collapse.

In accordance with the definitio of a recession or a depression, we are not in either. That doesn't mean that life is beautiful all the time.

This type of slow growth may very well be the new normal.

And, I have been unemployed since 2007.

[HomerRamone]

5. Do NOT accept this as the "new normal"! nt

[damntexdem]

7. Although it's the new normal, we should not accept it.

[Ozymanithrax]

8. I'm not accepting, just considering the possibility.

Peak oil, an end to the U.S. empire, and a legislature hogtied by partisan quibbles will continue to exacerbate the problem of slow growth.

[dkf]

41. Yup. We need an Apollo energy mission or we are dead in the water.

[damntexdem]

6. A long-term decline in the American economy and accompanying rise in inequality.

Exacerbated by the Recession, but showing its own set of trends quite aside from that downturn.

[tridim]

9. It's the neocon attempt at drowning in a bathtub.

The water is currently being drained.

[Demeter]

10. Finance's Alamo

and we haven't yet begun to fight them.

[girl gone mad]

11. Controlled collapse.

[Mojorabbit]

31. I think you are right on the mark. nt

[Jkid]

12. The new normal

The economy is changed forever, just for us regular folk. As for the rich, it's business as usual.

[dmallind]

13. A very slow and mostly as yet jobless expansion on the economy.

Recessions have a definition. This isn't one. It doesn't mean we are all supposed to be happy happy joy joy. It's not that the end of the recession is incorrect, it's that people have unrealistic expectations of whta noty being in a recession should "feel" like.

Unemployment could go to 12% and povertyy could go to 20% and as long as GDP goes up it won't be a recession. Those things are pretty unlikely of course, but recessions are measured in neither.

[Urban Prairie]

14. Wild-ass guess

But for the bottom third of the US, it is the 21st century version of the "Great Depression".

For the middle third it is a long and deep recession, either caused by Obama or the Shrub, or both, depending on their political leanings, if any.

The top third is busily screwing the other two thirds by using the recession as an excuse to avoid loaning out the money that they were bailed out with. Much, if not most of the top third is comprised of global conservative corporate capitalists, who apparently intend to use their moneyed clout in DC to continue to stagnate the economy and attempt to influence voters into voting for and electing a Republican POTUS in '12.

[Orsino]

15. Chickens roosting. n/t

[McCamy Taylor]

16. PS. If the recession ended (for Big Business) that means our current woes are due to DELIBERATE

decisions aimed at increasing unemployment and decreasing the value of investments. I.e. if banks now have the money to make small business loans but they won't and if multinational corporations now have the money to return jobs to the US which were lost but they won't ---then they are deliberately trying to engineer a social revolution in which workers will lose all the protections they gained during the FDR administration, i.e. minimum wage, safe conditions, overtime and during the LBJ administration, i.e. discrimination protection.

This is what I think is going on. I could be wrong. We will see.

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. I don't think you're wrong.

More's the pity.

[Jax]

32. Wow McCamy, you nailed it here.

It scares me and ticks me off but you nailed it.

Great scary post. :thumbsup:

[Art_from_Ark]

42. That's a good synopsis

It's pretty obvious that Big Business has much contempt for the progressive policies of FDR and LBJ, and for the worker bees who are the actual ones producing the royal jelly for the queen bee and her larvae.

[scheming daemons]

17. A slow growth period following a huge collapse

[librechik]

18. a permanent correction

unless we all take to the streets and demand an end to outsourcing, unregulated speculation and free trade. I imagine we're so paralyzed as a political body that there will be piles of bodies on the streets before that happens.

[glitch]

20. A country in liquidation.

paraphrasing

http://nymag.com/news/politics/27340/

[Greyhound]

21. The results of an administration massaging numbers and limiting what is considered

until they get the result they want.

IOW, business as usual.
:kick: & R

[scheming daemons]

24. NBER is not part of the administration

....nice try.

:tinfoilhat:

[Greyhound]

25. Yargle bargle blargh!

And there's only 9% unemployment and there has been no inflation and we've turned the corner toward recovery and on and on and on...

Bye:hi:

[scheming daemons]

35. 9.6%.... 0.3%..... and yes

and hello.

[laughingliberal]

22. A4: All of the above.

[katty]

23. a desperately trying to control collapse-and making sure to

keep the rich happy for as long as possible.

[chervilant]

26. hmm...

So, we're supposed to accept without question the definition du jour of 'recession'? How about the description you posted herein about 'depressions'? I suppose we could all get on either of these bandwagons, but semantics (and anyone's definition of what we're experiencing economically) will not change the fact that our economy is AND will long remain in dire straits. The ship of our nation has hit the iceberg, and is listing adrift in the sea of our collective hedonism. These 'learned' pronouncements that the 'recession ended last year' are misleading, if not downright mendacious.

[Igel]

27. Polysemy.

That's the word you're after.

"Recession" as a technical term--and probably still has something akin to the original meaning in the field of economics--means a downturn in economic activity and output for a long enough period of time not to be a statistical fluke. The recession, in that sense, is over. Call it "recession (1)."

Since recessions almost always lead to higher unemployment, when the great mass of non-technical folk heard the term they came to associate the word "recession" with unemployment and the economic troubles *they* were experiencing. So they have their own competing definition. Call it "recession (2)."

The word's polysemous. People have no trouble with polysemy has long as the definitions aren't easily confused in a given context. It's also not a problem when the context isn't emotionally charged. In this case there's an emotional charge and to say that "recession (1)" is over makes it sound like "recession (2)" is over; they assume they're being told their plight isn't of concern to others, they feel unvalidated and disrespected.

People who use jargon in their daily lives, however, always feel superior and act like their technical definition must be the One True Definition. Making it worse is that many of those most prone to feeling pain after a recession and feel they're disrespected are precisely those least likely to be familiar with the term as jargon. Welcome to linguistic and cultural diversity in an age of intolerance.

The recession's over; the recession continues.

[chervilant]

29. Lovely

how words and concepts can be parsed to fit the user's agenda. I appreciate your post about polysemy, but does it make a difference? How we define our economic behavior now seldom resonates for those of us who are un- or underemployed. Saying that the 'recession ended last year' obfuscates just how bad our economic situation is and remains.

[beforeyoureyes]

28. It's now the status quo and until we get some real leadership in Washington and FIGHT

Like we have never in our lifetimes, it will NOT change.

Writing is on the wall, how long does it take for us to see what is right in front of our eyes?

[Hannah Bell]

30. capital strike.

[McCamy Taylor]

39. Very good! So our next move should be.....Nationalize the Banks!

Hannah Bell, you are a Marxist after my own heart!

[TBF]

33. It's been the American nightmare for about 95% of us for quite some time. nt

[Mnemosyne]

34. Quicker deaths of the poor? A3. n/t

[gulliver]

36. It's an example of horrendously poor communication.

The recession was a negative growth number. It's over when you have positive growth. Almost everyone appears to confuse the idea of the recession being over with the idea that prosperity has returned. So we get all of these "?!?!?" confused reactions all through the news media and right here on DU. It's not that the people are stupid. The people are the people. They just aren't being given the information in the right way, so they and the news media have worked themselves into a spastic fit of disbelief and outrage.

It's really simple. The recession was Bush and the Republicans driving America into the ditch. The end of the recession was when Obama and the Dems began to get America moving out of the ditch. But announcing the end of the recession absolutely, positively does not imply that we are out of the ditch. We are still in the Bush/GOP ditch, but we are out of the recession. They are two different things.

Unfortunately, that's just too subtle for the vast majority of people, and people are truly not getting it. That makes it a communications f-up.

[laureloak]

38. Recession is when the economy is in decline. Its growing now.

[defendandprotect]

40. Yahoo had an article up less than 2 months ago, Obama calling this a "depression" ....

however that word was scrubbed before I could post -- unfortunately I didn't do it

immediately.

Many Dems in Congress have been calling it "The Great Recession" --

any number of them seem to be stumbling over the word, seemingly ready to say "depression."

At any rate, I don't think Obama cured whatever it was two months ago -- either Depression

nor recession --

But obviously propaganda still works!

The news -- real or faked -- has brought us to a new plateau of let's pretend!

[flyarm]

47. shhhh ..you are not supposed to remind dumb people that..because the only people who could believe

this bullshit..have to be dumber than dirt..and we certainly don't want to remind them what Obama said a short period ago..

I was in a Hotel Restaurant Yesterday Morning..and USA TODAY was on each table..the Headline was ( to summarize) Recession over..I told those sitting at my table ..look at people's reactions when they read the headline..( I got to the restaurant first so I had seen the reactions already ) So my companions started watching ..and there was laughter all over the restaurant..when people read the headlines! I tell you..there was a definite out burst of laughter when people read the headlines! But it wasn't a *HA HA laughter..it was an angry type of laughter.

Then People in all the tables around mine started talking together ..and said this is worst than an insult..the comments got pretty heated..and angry about the bullshit..and the consensus was ..this propaganda is only for the dumbest among us! Or the very young who don't know the difference! These were all business people in this hotel restaurant.

This was in Boston Yesterday morning.

[defendandprotect]

50. Yes ... it seems to be a shiny new propaganda tool . . .

and I have to tell you that average citizens pick it up, as well ---

In my L&T store here, there's a woman I speak to from time to time -- just pleasantries --

and remember like back last year she was angry because press was reporting a difficult

economic future. She works on commission to some degree and was upset that it would hurt

sales! And this is a working person!!

But -- interesting to hear what you are saying -- and think most here at DU recognize it

as BS! We'll see!!

[eridani]

43. A really fucked up "new normal"? n/t

[Recursion]

44. A period of high unemployment and sluggish growth of the GDP

That sucks, but it doesn't meet the technical definition of "recession".

[Juche]

45. An acceleration of the decoupling between capital and labor

The economy is splitting between capital and labor more and more and labor is being left further behind. Capital has recovered and is now better than it was pre-recession (corporate profits & cash reserves are higher than they were before). Labor still suffers, the only plus labor is seeing is that the job hemorraging has stopped and we aren't going downhill anymore. But labor hasn't recovered at all.

I hope it isn't the new 'normal' but it might be. It has been happening for a while now though with supply side economics, stagnant job growth, no wage growth, etc. And I don't know how we can change it. Hopefully someone does.

[defendandprotect]

51. Think we need a major labor movement -- and a big slowdown by workers .....

workers are under threat of even worse conditions -- and more work being piled on them

as this capitalist greed expands --

We're also going out every day with these bank cards and earning money for the banksters!!

I'm trying to deal more with cash where I can --

and returning to checks where I can --

[flyarm]

46. Your imagination????????????

This propaganda that the recession is over .. is too stupid for words!

It may fool the youth..but not us Professional liberals! We have been through too many of these..

the bullshit gets so thick before an election ..from BOTH parties..I guess they still think they can fool enough of us..and i guess it works..but I don't know anyone that damn dumb!

[markmyword]

48. Who Are We KIdding!

I have to agree with the headlines the RECESSION IS OVER,
because its never was a recession.

Reason being,its been a DEPRESSION from the start. When you
have such high unemployment, foreclosure of
millions of homes, no job creation, only a handful of the
rich, making billions of dollars, I'd say this looks like the
1929 DEPRESSION all over again.

Remember that  they said the Titanic was unsinkable.
Well welcome to the new Depression Era......Can you spare a
dime? 

[KatyaR]

49. I think this news is what put me over the edge this week.

I have felt like crap, crying at the drop of a hat (and I'm not a crier)--I even frightened the dog from my crying, which made me cry even harder. I just don't see the point anymore. What kind of fraking parallel universe are we living in right now?

And I just deleted my sob story, because, really, aren't we all in the same boat right now--beat up, fed up, broke, and pretty much stuck or sinking fast?

And then we get this craptastic news and we're expected to be happy? :grr:

I'm not sure how much more we can take....

[defendandprotect]

52. GOP used to specialize in trying to demoralize Dems...now it seems Dems are doing it -- !!

I think we'll all actually KNOW when this depression/Great Recession is over --

and it sure as hell won't look the way it does now!!