By Joe Hoft | Gateway Pundit
The Boston Globe reports that the official pronouncement of a recession comes from a group of elites in Boston.
There’s a good chance the US Commerce Department will report Thursday that the economy shrank from April through June, a second-straight quarterly contraction that by a conventional rule of thumb would mean the nation is in a recession.
But it’s not officially a recession until a small group of experts empaneled by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge says so — and they are known to take their time.
The private organization that the federal government has empowered to designate recessions is headquartered in a nondescript office building between Harvard and Central squares, with a parking lot next to Hubba Hubba, a self-proclaimed “sex positive” boutique. Outside economists describe its workings as mysterious, and the long wait for its recession pronouncements can be like watching for the white smoke heralding a new pope…
…But the absence of a recession declaration creates an information void. Many people, including some economists, default to the two-quarter rule that usually — although not always — is correct. And until NBER makes its announcement, Democrats and Republicans are able to spar about whether the nation is actually in a recession.
It appears clear that the memo has gone out to the press that “you’d better not call it a recession until NBER says so.”
The supposedly non-partisan NBER has at least two members (Christina Romer and her husband) who are fervent leftists, so they will almost certainly heed the call, even though they probably already have all the data they need to declare that a recession began late last year.
Combine this with the White House insisting yesterday that it won’t believe even with a negative second quarter that we’re in a recession because so much other news is so strong per PJMedia:
Axios reported that White House economic advisors on Thursday moved the goalposts on what a recession is. The traditional definition of a recession is two or more quarters of economic shrinkage, but the Biden administration argues that “by most measures,” according to Axios, “the world’s largest economy remains comfortably in expansion mode.”
That’s why the White House “is seeking to preempt heightened recession chatter that would accompany two quarters of shrinking GDP.”
By changing the accepted definition.
Citing a “holistic look at the data,” the White House Council of Economic Advisors claims that “it is unlikely that the decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year—even if followed by another GDP decline in the second quarter—indicates a recession.”
Top economist Art Laffer reported that we’re already in a recession.
The bad news is piling up and conditions are deteriorating quickly. The last time the GDP hit a high was in October of last year. This is now eight months of declining GDP.
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