Pollster.com

Who ar these people saying the economy is not in recession?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: ARG had Obama winning the New Hampshire democratic primary by a significant margin.

"Who ar these people saying the economy is not in recession?"

For some people it's not. If you're a nurse, for example, you're probably doing better than ever before.

The question was is the economy in recession, the answer is yes...it didn't ask about your personal situation. My perosnal situation is good, but I am fully aware of the world around me. And its bad.

Stillow - I believe Ben Bernanke is one of those people.

@ thombo

Yeah, but B.B. is part of the vast left-wing conspiracy to put all privately held wealth in the hands of the government, because, you know, the only government in recent history more communistic than the current government was in Russia circa 1989 (thanks to fieldmarshall for that one).

No, but Ben is part of the Fed who helped cause this entire problem to begin with....with manipulation of markets and intrest rates.

Tell the 16 percent of the country who cannot find good full time work there is no recession. The bump in auto and home sales is shortlived...since it was only temprarily stimulted by g'ment money which they had to borrow i nthe first place.

To argue there is no recession makes you libs look very very foolish.

@ Stillow

I too know people who are suffering in the current economic climate, but you should know that there is a difference between the indicators that economists use to define a recession and the everyday lives of Americans. People can still be suffering when a economy is not in recession. In fact, Bill Clinton capitalized upon such a phenomenon in 1992 where he was able to speak to those who were economically downtrodden (in the wake of Reagan's mess) even though the economy was no longer technically in a recession. Plus, since 53% of the respondents said the US is no longer in a recession, there had to be some Inds. and Reps. in that percentage, which would make them foolish by your logic.

We are still ina recession by definition. Unless you wish to rewrite the definition...?

And this poll says 53 percent DO think we are in a recession, which we are. We have another wave of foreclosures coming in 2010 as right now a record number of people are behind in there mortgage payments...2010 will be as bad if not worse than 2009. Sorry, but you cannot spend your way out of a recession with g'ment money htat had to be borrowed and printed.

Doesn't work that way. You need real money to get out of a recession.

There's no single, undisputed definition of a recession. Recessions can be defined from a subjective angle (i.e. some proportion of the population may be in recession while others may not be), or by trying to impose a formal "objective" definition (e.g. "two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth", which was actually only one of Shiskin's suggestions, but few remember the other suggestions he gave). I'd personally say that the US is still in a recession, but it's definitely not wrong to say that it isn't.

Is a recession not defined as two consecutive quaters of negative growth?

That is the economic definition, perhaps the best definition in my opinion. But the question is subjectively asked in different regions that maybe already out of or somewhat immune to the recession.

I would shy away from using terms like "economic definition", because it implies that the others are somehow less legitimate in the field of economics. The term often applied is "technical recession". But the bottom line is that there is no universally accepted measure of what a recession is, technical or otherwise. The general agreement is that a recession involves a widespread contractionary effect in the economy reflected falling output and reduced level of economic activity.

Within that broad paradigm, you may get different rules of thumb, such as the commonly repeated idea of consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth. Another way of benchmarking a recession is to look at employment figures; where there's markedly increased unemployment, that's reflective of both the macroeconomic output gap and the human cost of declining output levels. And there are many other ways, too. I don't think it's especially useful to try to apply a blanket description based on the straitjacket of a single rule.

I think most of those that think we are not in a recession work for Goldman Sachs.

Interesting that ARG has 57% of Independents approving of Obama's job performance. A month ago they had it at 36% approval v. 57% disapproval among Independents. I'm not sure that I trust this poll, but it would be one hell of a swing if accurate.

Maybe the din of the tea baggers has been drowned out with the truth and people in the middle realize that Obama is not some evil Socialist after all.

There seems to be a pretty firm consensus that Q3 GDP was pretty decently positive. Ergo, we're not in a recession anymore, unless you wait to mark the official end of the recession until the official release of initial GDP numbers on the 29th. But it's hardly foolish for people to believe we're no longer in a recession.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20091023/ureal-gdp-q3-09.htm

We are by any definition coming out of the recession.

The bad news is that as the economy heats up the only way to avoid inflation is for Kenneth Feinberg to slash everyones salary. If the Fed raises rates much, it will kill job growth and jobs are the administrations biggest political headache.