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this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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The GDP fell for two quarters though. They just changed the definition of recession.
No they did not. The NBER is always the office that declares a recession and they did not do so because employment numbers did not match recession like conditions.
I mean, that's just a semantic dispute. The NBER is not the dictator of economic reality, it's not even a government organization. The truth is that capitalism is a theory put into practice, and that embodied theory is going to be interpreted differently by different observers.
To claim that "the NBER is always the office that declared a recession", negates the fact that there have been recessions before the NBER, and in countries that are not observed by the NBER.
I thought it would be clear that the National Board of Economic advisors wouldn't be working fir all nations.
The NBER declares recessions for the USA and they did not do so due to employment stats. The literature regarding this has been very clear about this point.
And I thought that it would be clear that if other nations have different ways to define a recession, then it would be obvious that your dispute is semantic in nature.
Right..... they declare when they believe the country has entered a recession. However, that self determination may not always be correct.
If the general population experiences the effects of a recession and the NBER doesn't agree, that doesn't mean we didn't experience a recession. It justeans that are economy has changed and things like employment numbers aren't as important as they used to be.
Yes, but the literature and theory surrounding economic policy is wrong more often than not. I mean the entire premise of capitalism is built upon the fallacious assumption that it's possible to maintain perpetual growth.
I think people like to imagine that economics is more of a hard science, when in reality it is based on unreliable and enigmatic variables like public opinion.
Except it isn't because in context it is clear we are talking about the USA and the current day so NBER is the appropriate source and Im not being pedantic you just seem to be having troubles following the conversation and/or want to get involved in tangents.
As we cannot in any meaningful way determine when a recession is happening based on anecdotal experience it doesn't mean anything what individuals experience.
Recessions are specific instances and when you can easily get not just a job but one that pays more we are not in the conditions of a recession.
The original claim was that "they" changed the definition of recession. You are the one who is insisting that "they"= "we are talking about the USA and the current day"
They could imply the capitalist, the ruling class, the government, or even an organization like the NBER. Unless you are claiming that how we determine if a recession has occurred has remained unchanged throughout the history of capitalism, then your claim was a semantic dispute. If you are claiming that then you are just incorrect.
The article this whole thread is about discusses the chances for a recession in AMERICA, so Im not the only one saying they=American.
This isn't semantics. You have not been paying any attention to the subject at hand. Might I suggest you look at the title of the linked article?
Right..... But "they" doesn't imply a specific entity, nor does it specify a time.
The way we define a recession in America has changed over time, we only started utilizing the NBER for this in the 1960s.
They does apply to a specific entity since the discussion is overtly about America.
"They" changed the definition would mean the US government changed the definition and that is incorrect.
And now that I have explained 3rd grade English grammar to you regarding how pronouns work, I think we can stop here. You were not paying any attention to the subject at and kept losing the thread and then resorting to bs when this was pointed out.
Lol, if we are basing this on your assumption wouldn't "they" mean the NBER?
And if they meant either, wouldn't that still be correct given that the way they define a recession has adapted over time......again they made an extremely vague claim that did not include any specified descriptors, including time.
My original claim was that you were having a semantic dispute.... That's still my claim. Your issue is that you are stuck in an intentionality fallacy, where you have assumed the meaning of his statement and then rejected it for not being as specific as you would like.
Lol, and you are still failing to understand that the specificity of a pronoun cannot be assumed by a person outside of a discourse. A person making a vague claim after reading an article is not specific enough to assume their meaning unless asked for further clarification.
OP has no idea who NBER was so "they" would be the government.
Do context clues exist in your first language?
And what evidence has led you to believe that....... Oh yeah, another assumption!
Lol, do logical fallacies exist in your first language?
Assumptions are not logical fallacies. Deriving info from context is not either.
The logical fallacies happened when you utilized your assumptions to validate your claim, not when you made an assumption.
That isn't a fallacy either. If they knew about the NBER or not "they" did not change the definition. The definition they thought was correct is an oversimplification and was not correct.
The continuum fallacy (also known as the fallacy of the beard,[9][10] line-drawing fallacy, or decision-point fallacy[11]) is an informal fallacy related to the sorites paradox. Both fallacies cause one to erroneously reject a vague claim simply because it is not as precise as one would like it to be. Vagueness alone does not necessarily imply invalidity. The fallacy is the argument that two states or conditions cannot be considered distinct (or do not exist at all) because between them there exists a continuum of states.
Where are you getting that?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1aimT
This isn't real GDP. Real GDP was slightly below flat in the first two quarters of 2022, but due to employment numbers it wasn't declared a recession.
What’s the definition now?
It wasn't redefined. They just never fully understood the definition. It isn't just two quarters of negative growth though that's the common definition. The NBER, who declare recessions, look at other aspects such as employment numbers before making the call. The employment numbers were too good to justify calling it a recession.
If a Democrat is in office, it's a recession.
The two quarters thing was always a rule of thumb. The real definition is more subjective.