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Did they also teach you that petulant attitude in business school?
Yes it can.
Good lord.
Next you will tell me that gravity pulls you up and that the sky is really green, but only in Indiana. As long as we are making up definitions to proven phenomenon, why not?
Next you will tell me that gravity pulls you up and that the sky is really green, but only in Indiana. As long as we are making up definitions to proven phenomenon, why not?
LOL
I bet you lay awake at night trying to rationalize the efficient market hypothesis.
I bet you lay awake at night trying to rationalize the efficient market hypothesis.
No...I am sticking to the definition of a recession in a thread about recessions! Is that so insane?
If I cannot assume you will stick with the operating definition of a term, how can I have any sort of intelligent conversation with you?
So what do you think a recession is? Please define it for me, since apparently you are arrogant enough to think you know better than how the rest of the world has defined the term.
EDIT:
and as a side note, EMH is crap. Any economic theory that ignores black swans and statistical fat tails is hard for me to take seriously
Since Mr. hnsq is all semantic-y and stuff, thought he may be interested to read the following quote from the NBER... they're just the authority on declaring recessions in the U.S.
"The NBER does not define a recession in terms of two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP. Rather, a recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. For more information, see the latest announcement from the NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee, dated 9/20/10."
Quote:
hnsq: A recession is simply when GDP falls for two consecutive quarters.
I actually agree with hnsq on this one. A recession is a defined term as is the case with all words. Therefore, by the definition originally given to recession, we are not in one as we have seen (miniscule) growth in our economy.
There actually may not be a term created yet for what we are experiencing with our economy. To hnsq's point, our economy is absolutely not stable. So, even though we might not be in a recession, perhaps we are in some other yet-to-be defined term to describe a very shaky economy.
Anyone down for some word play? What can we call our economy to describe its current state? Any fancy sounding terms? An oscillation perhaps?
The definition he uses did not even exist until the 1970's. There is no "original" definition of recession.
What I mean is that you can't just change the definition of a word (in our context, an economic recession) because it does not describe something. If the definition of the word that exists does not fit the description of the event or occurrence, you need to create a new term. My point is, perhaps there is not yet a term in place to describe the frequent up-and-down cycles of our economy that we see today. It is certainly not economic recession. I suggested economic oscillation. It seems to fit the description of what's occurring now.
Edit: I think a lot of folks use recession as a general term for when the economy is bad. Similar to how they use depression as a general term for when the economy is really bad. But the definition of these terms, at least inside the realm of economics, have a technical meaning. That technical definition is:
Two or more consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP.
Since we have had some economic growth, we are technically not in an economic recession. But we are definitely not in the clear either. We still have some serious economic problems to deal with.
Last edited by Z3N1TH 0N3; 09-08-2011 at 03:02 PM..
And yet that's exactly what happened in the 70's, when a group of people decided that they wanted to change the definition of recession.
you can buy into that if you want. plenty of people do. i consider it a hallmark of herd thinking.
do i have my own, alternate definition? No. I simply don't accept theirs as "law."
What you and hnsq have going on is really nothing more than playing semantics with each other. The economy is bad. Nobody is debating that. We're still technically not in a recession (two or more quarters of real gdp decline) though. Just call it what it is:
High unemployment
Big trade deficits
Overwhelming debt
3+ Wars
In other words, a cluster-****.
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