POLL: Do you think we're in a recession yet?

[rchiu]

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

A recession is defined in arrears after the 2nd quarter's GDP numbers are released. It is impossible for us to be in a recession right now, the only time it will be possible will be the close of business on June 30th 2008. The reason why it's defined as two quarters is that you need to show a trend, not just a 1-time spurt. Additionally, it's defined as the whole quarter, not just a part of one, since you could, and often do, have negative growth for a day, week, or month, but often (or most) times end the quarter positive.

That's the strict interpretation of recession. Most people would agree that we had a recession in 2001, but we never had 2 consecutive qtrs of declining GDP. We had negative GDP growth in Q3 2000, Q1 2001 and Q3 2001, but NBER declared we had a recession from Mar 2001 to Nov 2001 since the real GDP over this period dropped by 0.2%.

But yeah, we haven't had a negative GDP growth for a while, in fact we had a 4.9% annualized GDP growth in Q3 2007, which is decent. Q4 figure will be released later this month, but based on the retail report that was just released, it doesn't look very good, but I still doubt it will hit negative territory.

I believe Wall St. is saying we will have 40% chance of recessing in 2008. I think we are much more likely to have a stagnation then recession.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: jman19

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Originally posted by: woodie1
Don't think so now but will be soon.

Those of you saying ?soon?. You think the DOW is going to recover this quarter?

When was the last time anybody measured a recession by the Dow? Please point to historical references.

Jaskalas makes bold statements - unfortunately, they are often far too simplistic as well.

On that note, I don't think many people even know what actually defines a recession.

Yes. Exactly. Precisely. I'm glad someone pointed this out.

I haven't the foggiest idea what defines a recession apart from what the media tells me. For the moment, I know that housing prices are at an all time low, and that benefits me, as a real estate investor, because that means I can buy more property.

The US dollar may be falling in value, yes. Which will in turn cause American Goods to fall in price. Which will in turn mean more foreign purchases. Which will in turn cause the value of the dollar to rise. Which means less foreign purchases.

Capitalism means seeking equilibrium.

 

[LegendKiller]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: jman19

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Originally posted by: woodie1
Don't think so now but will be soon.

Those of you saying ?soon?. You think the DOW is going to recover this quarter?

When was the last time anybody measured a recession by the Dow? Please point to historical references.

Jaskalas makes bold statements - unfortunately, they are often far too simplistic as well.

On that note, I don't think many people even know what actually defines a recession.

Yes. Exactly. Precisely. I'm glad someone pointed this out.

I haven't the foggiest idea what defines a recession apart from what the media tells me. For the moment, I know that housing prices are at an all time low, and that benefits me, as a real estate investor, because that means I can buy more property.

The US dollar may be falling in value, yes. Which will in turn cause American Goods to fall in price. Which will in turn mean more foreign purchases. Which will in turn cause the value of the dollar to rise. Which means less foreign purchases.

Capitalism means seeking equilibrium.

House prices aren't anywhere near an all-time low, in fact, they are still at an all-time high. However, they are falling at an unprecidented rate and will continue to fall throughout the next year or two.

 

[Slew Foot]

Haha, Atreus21 is a pretty shitty investor.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: jman19

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Originally posted by: woodie1
Don't think so now but will be soon.

Those of you saying ?soon?. You think the DOW is going to recover this quarter?

When was the last time anybody measured a recession by the Dow? Please point to historical references.

Jaskalas makes bold statements - unfortunately, they are often far too simplistic as well.

On that note, I don't think many people even know what actually defines a recession.

Yes. Exactly. Precisely. I'm glad someone pointed this out.

I haven't the foggiest idea what defines a recession apart from what the media tells me. For the moment, I know that housing prices are at an all time low, and that benefits me, as a real estate investor, because that means I can buy more property.

The US dollar may be falling in value, yes. Which will in turn cause American Goods to fall in price. Which will in turn mean more foreign purchases. Which will in turn cause the value of the dollar to rise. Which means less foreign purchases.

Capitalism means seeking equilibrium.

House prices aren't anywhere near an all-time low, in fact, they are still at an all-time high. However, they are falling at an unprecidented rate and will continue to fall throughout the next year or two.

Oh right right. Oops.

 

[Ozoned]

Here is some of the best up to date economic indicators that exist

Notice the big slump in automobile car loadings, with everything else trending about the same as last year. Total car loadings for 2007 were off slightly from 2006, but still the 2nd largest in history.

Growth has slowed, but not stopped.

 

[TheNewbie]

Recess now, don't fool yourself.

 

[Orsorum]

Now, we're not, but I suspect much of our "growth" is residual from the credit giveaway that's taken place over the last five years. When the next round of rate resets and credit card defaults comes around the numbers will correct and we will not like the correction.

 

[Engineer]

LOL. Just heard on the radio that breast implants are a good indication of the current state of the economy based on a study and right now, they are sagging badly! (pun or no pun). :laugh:

(funny, but actually true. People cut out items like breast implants when the economy is going into the shitter).

I've said it before...we may not be in a technical recession, but the average person's average wages have been in a recession for half a decade after inflation is factored in.

 

[randym431]

I'd ask someone that has lost their job, lost their house and lost their healthcare.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: randym431
I'd ask someone that has lost their job, lost their house and lost their healthcare.

Yeah, and forget about those who have increased their standard of living(or rather incomes).

 

[jman19]

Originally posted by: randym431
I'd ask someone that has lost their job, lost their house and lost their healthcare.

That doesn't mean we are in a recession.

 

[Muse]

Yeah, now. IMO we've been in one since, um, 1963 when JFK was gunned down.

 

[RaiderJ]

From what I've seen of the housing market, prices have been artificially inflated over the last couple years because lenders were handing out loans left and right. So, a downturn in that market would make sense - bring prices down to a more realistic level.

 

[TheSlamma]

Originally posted by: Mxylplyx
yes

I'm getting some killer rate offers trying to refi my house.

ARM bullshit or some actual responsible fixed rates? I'm also considering a refi if I can beat my 6.5% FIXED by enough to make it worth it.

 

[Fern]

We're not in one now.

We don't what developments may occur over the next 5 or 6 months. To say we will be in one is speculation.

The MSM and their constant economic doom & gloom may end up driving confidence so far down we do actually end up in a recession.

Most people who own homes do so for the sole reason - gasp- of living there. So they won't have any negative consequences from this refi & CDO problem. Moreover, I don't give a d@mn if some banks lose money due to bad decisions/gambles. That's how it ought to work and I don't forsee any negative consequences to myself resulting.

I'm hearing estimates of 3 more fed rate cuts this year. While it may make the dollar lower (my only gripe there would be increased gas prices) if it causes CC interest rates and ARM mortgages to drop I see it as a good thing.

Auto sales? Yep, if the big 3 can keep making gas guzzlers that's their problem. Toyota (and BMW) has a plant near here, they'll do well.

The only problem that concerns me is oil & gas prices as it's reflected across the board in all product pricing due to transportation & shipping.

Fern

 

[IGBT]

..the misery milkers in todays media are always going to magnify and promote recession based action lines. if you wana feel better turn the TV off.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas
For some frame of reference: Subprime Nation

Yes, this crisis has begun. Our bankrupt policies will begin to severely afflict this nation and its people. The only thing we're doing now is trying to sell ourselves to the world. Even if that works and staves off this current plunge, I am going to guarantee that we won?t change our bankrupt policies and we will send ourselves right back over the edge.

Be it this year or four years from now, this is a crisis unlike anything since the great depression.

It's nice to see that another person tends to agree with me in this forum. IMHO, we've been in a recession since the turn of the century; it was just masked by easy credit and irrational exuberance in the housing market. For years the nation's economy has failed to generate enough jobs to keep up with its population explosion and many if not most of those jobs were low-paying, low-skill, low-value-added service jobs. Once the Internet and telecommunications allowed knowledge-based college-education-requiring jobs to be done in India on the cheap, the nation entered a recession.

Pat Buchanan had some good points in the Subprime Nation op-ed. I really liked the part where he pointed out that our trade deficit dollars are not being used to purchase American labor--American goods and services--but rather that they're being used to purchase American assets:

We let Europe to get away with imposing value-added taxes averaging 15 percent on our exports to them, while they rebate that value-added tax on their exports to us. Thus, the euro has almost doubled in value against the dollar in the Bush years, as NATO Europe begins to bail out on Iraq and Afghanistan.

We sat still as Japan protected her markets and dumped high quality goods into ours and China undervalued its currency to suck jobs, technology and factories out of the United States. Now, China and Japan have $2 trillion in cash reserves. The Arabs have an equal amount of petrodollars. Both are headed here to spend their depreciating dollars snapping up U.S. assets?banks, ports, highways, defense contractors.

America, to pay her bills, has begun to sell herself to the world.

---------

This self-indulgent generation has borrowed itself into unpayable debt. Now the folks from whom we borrowed to buy all that oil and all those cars, electronics and clothes are coming to buy the country we inherited.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: narcotic Probably will be better in a couple of years though, its a simple economic cycle.

Sadly, this isn't another simple economic cycle. It's global labor arbitrage.

By merging our labor market and our economy with the billions of impoverished people who live in the third world the wealth of America's middle class is dissipating and averaging out with the wealth of the billions of people who live in India, China, and Mexico, and the result is going to be an impoverished middle class.

Are you ready to join the third world?

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: Engineer
LOL. Just heard on the radio that breast implants are a good indication of the current state of the economy based on a study and right now, they are sagging badly! (pun or no pun). :laugh:

(funny, but actually true. People cut out items like breast implants when the economy is going into the shitter).

This recession business is worse...much worse than I thought! If we can't drown our sorrows by drowning our faces in big bodacious bazongers then this truly is the end of our American way of life!

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: rchiu

But yeah, we haven't had a negative GDP growth for a while, in fact we had a 4.9% annualized GDP growth in Q3 2007, which is decent. Q4 figure will be released later this month, but based on the retail report that was just released, it doesn't look very good, but I still doubt it will hit negative territory.

An article in Business Week revealed that a good portion of that alleged GDP growth could be phantom GDP and that the reported amounts of GDP growth were inaccurate.

http://www.businessweek.com/ma...usinessweek+exclusives

 

[TheNewbie]

Originally posted by: Engineer
LOL. Just heard on the radio that breast implants are a good indication of the current state of the economy based on a study and right now, they are sagging badly! (pun or no pun). :laugh:

(funny, but actually true. People cut out items like breast implants when the economy is going into the shitter).

I've said it before...we may not be in a technical recession, but the average person's average wages have been in a recession for half a decade after inflation is factored in.

I don't know which radio station you're listening to, but I must be listening to the wrong one.. :laugh:
I saw this episode of Dr. Plastic (on E!.. err.. for educational purposes) where a woman went to Mexico to get a cheap boob job, anyway, her nipples fell off, and he was fixing her for free (yeah.. not like E! was paying for that or anything..).
I forgot how that links to the current discussion, but I thought I'd mention it. :salute;

 

[StageLeft]

Interesting. This thread is 13 months old, almost. Unlike many threads bumped from the past, pretty much everyone here (save those who answered "No, we are not in one and won't be in the forseeable future" in the poll, knew what was coming. And remember the government official line, even well after this thread was created, is that things were going to be fun and we could still see a recession countered (I recall Bernanke in February saying it).

 

[Martin]

Its a mental recession, those hundreds of thousands of people that lost their jobs over the last month just need to pick up the #1 conservative-recommended book - "The Secret". Think nice thoughts and wonderful things will happen to you! Its magic!

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
Interesting. This thread is 13 months old, almost. Unlike many threads bumped from the past, pretty much everyone here (save those who answered "No, we are not in one and won't be in the forseeable future" in the poll, knew what was coming. And remember the government official line, even well after this thread was created, is that things were going to be fun and we could still see a recession countered (I recall Bernanke in February saying it).

Now that we have gone over the abyss, what sort of recovery are we going to create? The choice is simple and primitive. We?ll either have a healthy recovery in which the dead weight is washed aside or we?ll prop it up with a bigger bubble.

I propose to you now that if we do not allow a healthy and natural process to unfold, that if we recover through government spending, then we?ll only accomplish setting up our next house of cards. This will no longer be an inflated housing bubble, this will be an inflated government bubble. When this next bubble bursts there will be NO ONE to bail out the United States government.

This is like watching a sort of collective failure. It started off isolated and made more collective by our action.