Tag Archives: recession

economic news

Don’t redefine recession

Here’s a bit of unsolicited advice for President Biden’s team of advisers and economic gurus.

Do not seek to redefine what constitutes an economic recession.

The feds this past week reported that the nation’s Gross Domestic Product fell for the second consecutive quarter. Isn’t that metric usually what economists call a recession?

We now hear Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen say that it’s not necessarily preordained that we’re in a recession. President Biden won’t acknowledge the inevitable, either.

In truth, any declaration on the health of the economy is supposed to come from an independent, bipartisan group of economists. That group will meet very soon to issue its proclamation.

I realize that Joe Biden wants the economy to keep humming along. We’re going to get a Labor Department jobs report at the end of the week. Those numbers will tell us a good bit more about whether we’re in a recession … which I believe is the case.

And that will be the case no matter how the administration might seek to spin it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

Bill Maher is a not-too-funny comic, not a member of the media

I posited a notion in an earlier blog post today that Donald Trump’s assertion that the media are trying to destroy the economy is a typically absurd effort to avoid taking any responsibility for the economic woe his own policies might bring to American.

Then a post from a couple of days ago came to my attention. It’s of Bill Maher saying he wishes the economy tanks so that Donald Trump is denied re-election next year.

Is there a parallel here? I don’t see it.

Maher is a comic and sometime-political commentator who’s got a talk show that I never watch, although I’ve heard Maher’s shtick over the years. I don’t think he’s very funny. His “comedy” occasionally crosses a line or two of good taste and decorum.

I am perplexed enough to ask: Is this guy a member of the media? I suppose one could suggest so, given that he at times appears on left-leaning cable commentary shows to offer his world view on this or that issue. However, his media role is at best something that occurs on its fringe.

If you’re interested, you can see how The Hill reported Maher’s rantings here.

I’ll stand by my earlier post that the president is wrong to blame the media for conspiring to tank the economy.Ā He is trying to divert attention from his policies that threaten to undermine the “greatest economy” in human history.

Plus, the media are for-profit businesses that would suffer mightily with the loss of ad revenue if the economy heads straight into the crapper.

Do the media intend to cut their own throats by seeking to destroy the only thing that Donald Trump could say has earned him a second term in office? I don’t believe so.

Uncategorized

Euro recession over? Tell that to Greeks

This just in: The recession in the European Union is over.

But if youā€™re a citizen of those countries hit hardest by the financial crisis, youā€™re pain hasnā€™t yet let up.

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/world/article/Eurozone-recession-end-is-cold-comfort-for-Greece-4731488.php

I get that the Germans, French and even the Italians are faring better these days. Their economies grew for the second quarter in a row, prompting EU economists to declare the recession to be over.

The story in Greece and Spain, for example, is quite different.

Letā€™s look at Greece, my ancestral home that became an international laughingstock when the financial crisis nearly took it down.

The Greek economy is still in the tank, down about 24 percent since 2008; just in the past year alone, it shrank 4 percent. Unemployment is about 25 percent, nearly as bad as Spain, which has Europeā€™s worst unemployment rate. Barry Bosworth of the Brookings Institution describes the Greek economic condition as far worse than a recession. “It goes way beyond anything that looks like a recession,” he said. “It’s absolutely appropriate to refer to Greece as in a depression.”

***

This characterization hurts me at a personal level.

Iā€™ve visited Greece three times: twice with my wife in 2000 and 2001, and again by myself in 2003. Itā€™s a magical place. My three visits there came as the country was preparing to play host to the 2004 Summer Olympics. They cleaned up Athens, scrubbed the graffiti off building walls and highway overpasses, built a sparkling new airport, constructed a state-of-the-art subway system and, in general, presented themselves as more than ready to host such a magnificent worldwide event.

But they did it on borrowed money. They went into hock up to their armpits ā€¦ and then the bills came due.

Iā€™m not sure the Euro recession is as ā€œgoneā€ as the EU folks say it is. Another hiccup in Greece, or Spain, or Portugal ā€“ where the recession/depression is lingering ā€“ could send the continent into another tailspin.

I keep thinking of when I walked to the top of the Acropolis in 2000 and stood in front of the Parthenon. My thoughts were of enormous pride that my ancestors were able to build such structures and were able to produce great genius.

If only they could revive that brilliance and find a way out of the economic mess that is largely of their own making.