Reply #18: What recession? We didn't have no stinkin' recession! Was a "soft spot"

[54anickel]

First it was the Clenis to blame, Shrub inherited it. Now, there never was one. If that's so, then why the emergency level of rates, tax cuts, etc?

2001 Slump May Not Have Been Recession at All :eyes:

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=5828805

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Not only was the U.S. recession in 2001 the shallowest on record, it may not have been one at all -- at least in the classic sense of two straight quarterly declines, new government data show.

In annual revisions to U.S. gross domestic product numbers released on Friday that could fuel a politically charged debate, the Commerce Department rewrote the history of the recent downturn by revising away a decline in the second quarter of 2001.

The new figures, which reflect more complete source data, show economic activity peaked in the second quarter of 2001, not the fourth quarter of 2000.

Measured from the new peak, the economy shrank just 0.4 percent, keeping the recession as measured by GDP the mildest on record. The 1969-1970 recessionary period, in which the economy contracted 0.6 percent, comes in a close second.

The National Bureau of Economic Research, the unofficial but accepted arbiter of U.S. recessions, has said the downturn began in March 2001 and ended in November of that year.

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